Caitlin Clark is Not a Bitch

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

https://sports.yahoo.com/opinion-caitlin-clark-not-problem-191203201.html

I am not a sports person. Generally speaking I have no idea what any team is doing anywhere at any time. Caitlin Clark makes it onto my radar because she is an emblem of change, the maturation of women’s sports and the ability of women to be well paid sports stars coming to fruition. I believe it is a good thing, a very important milestone in human history.

Currently we have an insult hurled casually at this symbol of women’s advancement. The phrase in question is “A White Bitch.” Pat McAfee went there. He has since sort of, kind of, maybe apologized. I am very unimpressed. In the course of being on television and being a commentator, there is always the possibility of saying the wrong thing. It’s a fast medium that revels in word play. So, I expect the foolish and irresponsible to be said from time to time with the provision in mind that ladies and gentlemen can err but must take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them.

McAfee should sincerely apologize. He was wrong.

I have to say that we are in new territory here. I was a very young man when people like Muhammed Ali shot across the sky of sports and changed everything. There was a massive amount of controversy in that era and he was just one of many trailblazers in sports. This is a similar situation. Boundaries are being adjusted and the world is changing before our eyes. For many people, this is difficult.

It is a good thing but the ancient customs of civility and kindness must hold. We are not savages. We cannot and must not say whatever we feel for we are not children. We should say what is appropriate and kind with the intent of bettering and adding to what is known. That is true commentary.

Sports commentary should add to our understanding, not pretend to be shock jocks on talk radio. This is multi-billion dollar industry with many, many implications for our larger culture and in particular how we raise and nurture children. “A White Bitch” is not a phrase we should casually throw out for its momentary shock value. We have a better culture than that.

James Alan Pilant

The Pilots Went to Sleep?

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Let’s hope this doesn’t happen again.

When the title of this video essay came up on my computer screen I was pretty doubtful. There is a lot of clickbait out there and I’m used to lurid headlines designed to get my attention for the all important clicks that will give a site resonance in the online world. But I watched a little of it and became more intrigued especially as the title became more and more likely to be true. The pilots claimed to be working on their laptops and lost track of time.

But it does appear based on the totality of the evidence that that they were asleep. This is very obviously a business ethics failure. And as failures goes very blatant and very foolish. I read and watch a lot of material on air crashes because it makes for compelling stories for teaching business ethics. I have long used the BOAC Comet crash as example of design failure and manufacturing stupidity, the Turkish DC-10 crash outside Paris as an example of failing to fix an obvious and serious defect and the horrid tale of Air Alaska’s inverted last minutes as an example of a failure to perform maintenance. I’m trying to convey practical lessons about corporate behavior to a new generation of students.

This example is pretty close to useless as a moral example. I was teaching college students but if you ask a bunch of six year olds if you should nap instead of flying the plane, bless their little hearts, they are going to say no. They already have enough ethical sense to know that crosses a line.

I recommend the video. It is informative and certainly conveys the government and the air industry’s desire to maintain contact with conscious air crew at all times.

James Alan Pilant

Avoid False Workplace Positivity

On By southwerkIn business ethics
I am not opposed to a good work environment. I am opposed to nonsensical happy talk workplaces.

How to Navigate the Pitfalls of Toxic Positivity in the Workplace (msn.com)

New Study Finds Wishful Thinking Can Have Catastrophic Consequences (msn.com)

I had bosses who insisted on positivity in all circumstances, fortunately not very many. My personality does not lend itself to lies. I am a truth teller often to great personal cost.

But it wasn’t my unhappy experiences with workplace optimism that soured me on it. It was my historical knowledge. The former nations of the U.S.S.R. and the Empire of Japan both practiced forced optimism on a grand scale. Of the two, the Japanese were by far the worst example, promotion and even participation in decision making could be stalled for not sharing a rabidly happy attitude. And the Japanese in the course of the Second World War had a lot to be pessimistic about.

The Japanese believed in their variation of the “decisive battle doctrine.” The Japanese, the Americans, the Germans and the Italians were all followers of the teachings of Mahan, the master of modern naval strategy. Mahan believed that certain battles, for example, Trafalgar, determined the outcome of naval conflict between nations for as much as a hundred years. The Japanese assumed many, many battles were that kind of decisive when they were just another battle. A dramatic form of a truly incredible optimism.

After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese newspapers editorialized that just like Trafalgar, Pearl Harbor had transformed the balance of power in the world and henceforward they would be the dominant naval power on earth. Since Pearl Harbor reduced the margin of American superiority in numbers of warship but did not overcome it, this is quite the claim. Nor does it take into consideration the enormous American building program already underway which would eventually give the Americans complete dominance in the Pacific.

But this is what optimism untempered by reality gets you, foolish decisions and ridiculous opinions. And it got worse. As the Japanese began losing the war, each loss was simply a precursor to the “decisive battle.” So, no loss is that big a deal since the Japanese will eventually win the big one. Even in the final days before surrender, the Japanese military claimed that if they drew the Americans into one final battle over the home islands they would yet prevail. It was all nonsense. If not for the loss of so many lives, it might have risen to level of comedy.

And that brings us back to the subject of American business’ relentless focus on happy talk, meritless optimism and a thoroughly false workplace unanimity. Achievement depends on accurate information. You can’t fool people into doing well. You can rip them off and that happens. But real achievement depends on real cooperation, the use of people’s talents and a willingness to recognize and honor authenticity in the workplace.

It is hard to create a successful achievement model in business. It is easy to do the authoritarian model where “fearless leader” is always right and strides the land like a giant. Workplaces that are cooperative and intelligent are annoying and useless to the power oriented among us and many managers have little talent and less motivation toward high achievement. The simply coast along doing the same old things over and over again.

I remember some years ago reading squadron leader’s evaluation from the Royal Air Force in the midst of World War Two. They concluded that he had reached as high a leadership position as was possible, that he had no natural leadership ability and that they had trained him to the basics of combat leadership as was possible. I remember thinking that in the American college and university systems we seem to actively believe that we can educate leaders when we really don’t know how.

When leadership doesn’t know how to lead, corporate happy talk makes sense. Reality is an enemy to the untalented and foolish. Just deny, deny, deny. Everyone’s happy. Everyone’s successful. Everything’s fine. So, I ask you, my fine reader, wouldn’t actual leadership, actual performance and a strong connection with reality better serve us all both the business community and the larger society surrounding it?

I am told that I will have to publish an article every day for some years to attract a considerable readership and at this early stage, very few if any people will read these words. This saddens me. But I will struggle on. I am speaking to the world and whether or not anyone hears me is irrelevant.

James Alan Pilant

Multiplying Harassment

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have long noted that the one of the major changes in our society over the last decade has been the incredible empowerment of the stupid, the ill informed and the mentally disturbed. And these often crazed individuals have been weaponized to terrorize and troll the enemies of various right wing figures including one former President.

And here is a good example. This single individual using an ID blocker so he could call repeatedly, called various members of Congress more than twelve thousand times with dire threats and apparently in an obvious rage. What concerns me and concerns me a lot is “Did it take that many calls for him to be arrested?” Do misbehaving loons get a couple of hundred of these harassing phone calls with no action being taken?

But there are other implications. How do you expect people to work in congressional offices, to run for office or even participate in a public forum with these kinds of depraved loons running about. How many other phone calls did he make? And how many of his brethren are out there busy dialing up new people to make miserable? It is not every human being who has a thick enough skin to take phone calls from crazy people. And these harassing phone calls are crimes but how seriously does law enforcement take them?

This is where technology has brought us?? To make stupid people powerful?? To take the demented fools out of the bars and the institutions and give them an electronic tool kit to pervert the course of government??

We as a society need to think about this. We cannot have a functioning society with a large number of people devoted to making sure things don’t work – and there are a lot of them out there right now.

Democracy depends on participation by a learned and intelligent citizenry. But those voices can be drowned out by the deranged and the conspiracy minded. The most basic adherence to morality and ethics demands that we place limits on how much harassment and just plain lunacy interferes with the process of our lives.

We were promised an electronic paradise and what we got was a dystopian nightmare where the most pitiful crazed among us rule. We can and must do better. For when those who are unwilling to subject themselves to the misery and pain of our current public life flee, who will remain to govern us?

James Alan Pilant

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-pleads-guilty-making-more-223803596.html

Twelve thousand phone calls?!

Faithful Slaves?

On By southwerkIn business ethics

The American Civil War was fought over the evil that was slavery. The assassination of Lincoln prevented the necessary prosecution of the Confederate leadership and the old guard, the former slave owners, rose up in power to continue the oppression and pain inflicted on the poor Whites and Blacks. They tried to rewrite history with “The Lost Cause” nonsense and during the Jim Crow era put up statues as signposts that clearly indicating that minority rights did not exist in the South. More crudely put, these monuments were a direct threat of murder and pain to those who stepped across the color line.

Tyrell County has one of these “monuments.” Erected in 1902, its connection to the Civil War is barely arguable but its public demonstration of the power of the white aristocracy and their willingness to murder and punish is plain for all to see. It is dedicated to faithful slaves, a calculated insult.

History is important. But history shorn of its truth is an abomination. These monuments to Jim Crow are an attempt which for many years was successful to intimidate Blacks and rewrite history. It has failed. And these nonsensical pieces of stone should be consigned to the scrap heap. It doesn’t take a deep grasp of morality or ethics to see that preserving the Southern way of life, an idea the included the practice of slavery and many other discriminations, was not a worthy goal but in fact an abomination. Societies based on slavery had long passed in large part into the failed systems of history.

At the end of the Civil War, there were more Black soldiers in the Union Army than the entire strength of the Confederates. I don’t see any monuments to the fact that freed Black men were willing to risk their lives to end the barbarous practice of slavery. That would be real history.

Why don’t we build some real monuments to celebrate the heroism and sacrifice of Americans who fought for the right?

James Alan Pilant

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/23/us/nc-confederate-slaves-monument-lawsuit-reaj/index.html

This needs to go.

The Cold Blooded Republican Response to Climate Change

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I was looking at a poll the other day that found that 12% of the members of the Republican Party thought climate change was an important issue.

This is fascinating. I live in the middle of the United States. It is hotter than it has ever been and the weather more dramatic and powerful than it has ever been. You can literally feel climate change in the middle United States.

And yet, the great majority of one of the major political parties in the United States look at the thermostat and mutter, “Oh, no big deal.”

Looking at the news over the last few days, one sees that in the Philippines, it has gotten so hot that schools have been closed and classes moved online. India is in the grip of a huge heatwave.

And just today, now, here is a lead news article that indicates that thirty states are in the midst of record breaking heat wave.

“My Goodness” That looks surprisingly like objective evidence of climate change and maybe even a looming emergency.

So, surely Republicans will notice, right?

That would be nice. It would be part of the duty of a citizen in participative democracy to pay attention to facts and adjust their views accordingly but they will not change their minds. They live in a world where “owning the libs” is much of the meaning in their lives. And you can say, “James, that can’t be much of a life?” Well, yes, it is not much of a life. Thus there is just a ton of hysterical anger.

If you think I’m wrong. Look at the other stuff they are denying. They deny there is any significant racism in the United States (except against white people). Simply, reading the daily new should thoroughly prove that racism continues in America. It seems they don’t read. They deny the evidence of poverty and hunger in the United States to the point of refusing to supplement school lunch programs to feed children during the summer. And I could go on.

Florida has passed legislation removing climate change from consideration when making policy and abandoning a variety of green initiatives while also forbidding the construction of wind turbines on the coast.

To quote the governor of Florida:

“We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” DeSantis said in a post on the X social media platform.

The level of irony in the words of the governor are difficult to approach. Florida is in the middle of very serious heat wave, there are coral die offs all along the coast, and insurance companies are fleeing the state like so many rats from an overheated and perhaps burning ship.

I am concerned. Not about the Republicans, their current fantasies are really just silly. Saving them from nonsense is not something I can do. When you surrender your judgment to a cult, an online posting, the rants of hate radio or some weird conspiracy theory, the death of judgment and intelligence follows. What concerns me is that this nation where I make my home will probably be unable to deal intelligently and effectively with climate change. And because of our enormous economic power, we may doom much of the world with us.

It is the greed enshrined in our society’s goals and the way our corporations are set up solely to take money as their sole goal that will probably doom us and our future generations. It is very sad. We live in a nation developed in the ideas of the Enlightenment. We have the words of Lincoln and Thomas Paine to guide us – and all of that history or righteousness and glory is being denied, diminished and attacked.

Oh well, if I am to die of heat stroke or flooding or some other interesting element of climate change, I will die here in the United States. It is my home and I consider myself a patriot.

It is unfortunate that the limitations, foolishness and greed of a some Americans are going to do so much damage to so many.

James Alan Pilant

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tv-meteorologist-blasts-florida-don-152447336.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hot-mexico-howler-monkeys-falling-165619685.html

After Covid, now heat forces schools to go online in the Philippines | The Independent

‘Red alert’ in Delhi after temperature soars to 47C as heatwave grips India’s north (msn.com)

Meteorologist rebukes DeSantis for scrubbing climate change from state law: ‘Florida is on fire’ (msn.com)

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/terrifying-heatwave-map-shows-30-503037

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/16/1251769080/florida-desantis-climate-change-law

Doctor Who Bombs.

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I was about 16 when I first watched Doctor Who. The idea that someday it would become a home for gay and crossdressing themes would have surprised me. But here we are.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a gay character if the writing and the science fiction is good. But this show is no longer about good writing or science fiction, the focus is clearly on convincing you the viewer that alternate sexuality is utterly, completely, without any question normal and very, very important.

I started Doctor Who with Tom Baker back in the mid-1970’s. In classic Doctor Who, the stories take place all across space and time and are adventures in which a space alien of enormous age and experience protects the earth and its inhabitants from various dangers. It has run for many years. During that period it has generated high viewership numbers some of them record breakers.

Not any more.

I’ m one of that most hated species of all in the world of “woke” entertainment, I’m a fan. Our insistence on good writing, sensible plots and perhaps even a willingness to watch white men act heroically makes us incredibly obsolete in a media world where all character for some reason need to be reimagined as different sexes and races while often behaving as psychopaths. And it’s all our fault when feminist themed superheroes and science fiction fail — every single time. It’s not bad writing, nonsensical characters and pitiful marketing choices, it is because people like me are racist, sexist and intolerant. At least, that’s what the producers, directors and actors say after each multimillion bomb. So, obviously it must be true.

It is time for me to give up. It is time for all of us fans to give up. The good writing and science fiction themes we valued as basic parts of the franchise are gone forever. The Disney Company is providing financing. They are dictating a multi-sexual cast propagating a political agenda in each and every episode. They have billions and billions of dollars and if no one watches it, they don’t care. They will simply claim that the BBC viewership numbers are just small part of the picture and it is doing fine on other venues —- all of which they control and keep totally, completely secret. They could run 90 minutes of static and claim success and who know, at some point in the future they just might.

This isn’t good business ethics. If you’ve been watching a show for forty some years plus and it is good science fiction while having some of the finest writers in television, you get used to that. It is poor ethics to provide a bad product that no longer resembles the basic themes that made it successful. Poor writing, blatant preaching and silly characters are bad for any series and they are bad, bad business ethics. Let’s be blunt – you don’t market watered down bleach as fine wine. People can tell.

Don’t despair. There is fan fiction and we have years of past wonderful episodes to watch. None of which has been in anyway touched by the Walt Disney Company! That world where people traveled with the Doctor on behalf of humanity in a continued adventure still exists in the past episodes and continuing radio shows and novels. There is still a lot of Doctor Who left.

James Alan Pilant

BBC Doctor Who branded ‘woke’ and ‘unwatchable’ as TV ratings plummet following return to screens (msn.com)

Noisy and crude but accurate especially in its assessment of viewership numbers.

A Very Bad Neighbor or When Fire Chiefs Go Wrong

On By southwerkIn business ethics
The wrong way to deal with neighbor.
New Jersey fire chief vandalizes neighbor’s rare car with rocks — and it was caught on video

Business ethics demands that a human being behave as a person of reason not subject to outbursts of rage or radical responses. This act caught on camera, a very foolish act, is a failure of behavior and judgment. It is also a moral and ethical failure for which there must be penalties. As of the current date I am writing this, charges have been filed and I suspect there will be a civil suit as well.

We live in a civil society. We have an opportunity every day to reject the law of the jungle and live as brothers and sisters, joint citizens of a nation and a community.

Disputes don’t have to escalate to violence or the destruction of property. I taught for many years. One of my subjects was business law. I told a story of a very large company. They had a minor dispute over the boundary line between a huge factory and a home owner. The leadership of the company handed the problem off to the legal department who filed a lawsuit. I explained that was probably going to happen every single time you handed the problem off to legal. Let me explain.

“What should you have done in the CEO’s position?” I asked. And then I had to explain because they thought what was done was okay. “How about simply asking the neighbor, the home owner, if the problem could be settled by an agreement?” Now, maybe it couldn’t and we wind up in court anyway. But I believe most of the time that minor property disputes should remain minor disputes and not major legal cases that can last for years and cost a lot of money. Besides, why not act as a good neighbor and in fact, be a good neighbor. We don’t have to go to war over every dispute.

The man above did not act as a good neighbor. The acts we see on camera are those of a pathetic fool. I bet he thinks of himself as an “alpha” male and had a lot of laughs with his buddies over the thousands of dollars worth of damages he did to the neighbor’s car. Just another bully. They are a dime a dozen, strutting their pretend machismo. We see a lot of them these days.

There is a better way. Be a good neighbor. Behave as a good member of your religion if you have one. But above all remember you have a duty to act as a lady or a gentleman is all circumstances.

James Alan Pilant

Another Example of the Cruelty Being the Point

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.yahoo.com/news/critics-slam-ex-trump-wh-053453611.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-trump-aide-slammed-evil-142918279.html

An example of a man admitting committing a crime. Most unusual.

Recently some Republicans have been making news by denying children food benefits, rolling back child labor laws, killing their pet (more on this later) and just general cruelty. Apparently in the strange world of Republican politics the more mean and cruel an act is – the more political points it is worth.

Today’s example of cruelty just for points come from a fellow named John McEntee, who has posted a video of himself bragging about his acts of cruelty. Let me quote from the first article referenced above:

“So I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car so when a homeless person asks for money, then I give him like a fake $5 bill, so I feel good about myself, they feel good,” said McEntee in a clip with the caption “Just a joke. Everyone calm down #fyp.” “And then, when they go to use it, they get arrested so I’m actually like helping clean up the community. You know, getting them off the street.”

You may note that Mr. McEntee says this is just a joke, and everyone should calm down. I write about ethics and morality and I am not calming down. Apparently he thinks that passing counterfeit money is funny, that homelessness is funny, that abusing homeless people is funny and that jailing homeless people is funny. Based on this video, I do not believe that the world of comedy has found any talent here.

Generally awful people doing awful things keep their acts to themselves and wisely so. Back when I was teaching college I warned my students the people broadcast who they were all the time, and that when someone admits or even worse brags about their evil or foolish acts, you should believe them. McEntee says it is just a joke. Really?

From the second article above:

Under federal statute 18 section 471, it is a federal crime to intently “defraud, falsely makes, forges, counterfeits, or alters any obligation or other security of the United States”. That includes currency, treasury notes, reserve notes and more.

So, what do you think? Is this crime funny? Did you laugh or are you like me appalled at this pitiful disgusting conduct?

James Alan Pilant

Robert Reich Has Some Observations about Ethics

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/16/trump-hush-money-trial-morality

United States Department of Labor – http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/reich.htm (This picture was borrowed with humble gratitude from Wikipedia – I have followed their instructions for attribution.)

I don’t generally feature an opinion piece as the center of my approach on writing about business ethics or the larger questions of morality and ethics in American society. But this one caught my attention as it focuses on some issues that have been bothering me.

Robert Reich has written an opinion piece which appeared in the Guardian. It’s called “The Trump hush-money trial reveals a seedy world shot through with moral rot.” (The link is at top.)

Let me quote a little piece so you can get a flavor of it. Referring to Trump and his associates he writes:

It’s a sell-or-tell society, a catch-and-kill society, a just-take-care-of-it society. A society where money and power are the only considerations. Where honor and integrity count for nothing.

I strongly agree. The trial has not surprised me. I knew about Donald Trump long before his Presidential aspirations. I don’t mind telling you how I became interested. It was Trump University. People paid large sums of money for a product advertised with the Trump name and got virtually nothing in return. That conduct has been consistent throughout Trump’s career.

But he has millions of followers who seem to believe that his moral and criminal failings amount to nothing or are made up charges, a product of the deep state — or one of their other many fantasies.

Reich’s clear eyed and direct condemnation is important because so few people especially Republicans seem to have any moral qualms these days. Sometimes I thing that a complete lack of moral or ethical qualities is necessary for participation in the inner workings of the Republican party.

Robert Reich speaks while so many are silent. Here is some more of what he had to say:

I sometimes worry that the daily dismal drone of Trump world – the continuous lies and vindictiveness that issue from Trump and his campaign, the dismissive and derogatory ways he deals with and talks about others, the people who testify at his criminal trial about what they have done for him and what he has done for or to them – has a subtly corrosive effect on our own world. I think it is important to remind ourselves that most of the people we know are not like this. That honor and integrity do count. That standards of decency guide most behavior. That relationships matter.

I am sure that Donald Trump has damaged the moral fiber of the United States. I believe that the unleashed anger of the Internet trolls will continue and that we will be dealing with Trump pretenders for decades to come. He and his demented followers have made politics and discourse distasteful and crude. They have made conducting the governing of this nation difficult and often demeaning.

It is a tragic time for the United States and the nation may yet not survive it. The dramatic attacks on our justice system are just one part of a hideous proto-fascist approach to governance that we may see more of in the coming years.

God bless America. We all need it right now.

James Alan Pilant