Year: 2011

“An Army of Fake Personas”? I DO Trust the Military, I DO Trust the Military…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Why does the Air Force want to recruit these people?

Raw Story reports that a United States Central Command spokesman recently confirmed that the US Air Force had solicited private sector vendors for something called “persona management software.” The technology would allow an individual to “command” virtual armies of fake, digital personas across multiple social media portals.

The “personas” would have detailed, fictionalized backgrounds to make them undetectable as fake to outside observers, and there would be sophisticated identity protection to support the deception,  preventing suspicious readers from uncovering the real person behind the account. The program would also fool geolocating services, so these “personas” could be virtually inserted anywhere in the world, providing ostensibly live commentary on real events, even while the operator was not present.

Hmmmm. Continue reading →

The White Male Scholarship

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Does he really need a scholarship?

Colby Bohannan, president of the Former Majority Association for Equality, has set up a scholarship program for white males. To qualify, you have to be at least a 25 percent Caucasian, have demonstrated a commitment to education, achieved at least a 3.0 grade average, show financial need, and document a positive contribution to the community. Bohannan’s official reasoning is that white males are the only group that doesn’t have a scholarship dedicated to them. He is, he says, righting an injustice. Continue reading →

Cranky Ethics Encounters In A Rotten Week

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The unexpected death of my mom on Saturday tends to make everything else in my life the past week fade to insignificance, but the last seven days featured more than my usual quota of confrontations when thrust in the path of conduct that seemed just wrong to me:

  • Staying at a Fairfield Inn and Suites, a Marriott chain, in Greensboro, North Carolina, I found myself running behind schedule for a morning presentation. Rushing to take my shower, I was stopped cold by the shower controls, which made no sense at all. The long handle didn’t seem to do anything, and the round knob inside it had no effect either. Since I have the mechanical skills of a rodent, and am constantly embarrassed by my ineptitude, I fiddled with the knobs longer than I should have before giving up in a panic and calling the front desk.

“I can’t get the shower controls to work, and I’m late!” I blurted out to the woman manning the desk. “Send someone up right away!” Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: The U.S. Supreme Court

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

As the perfect tonic for all the attempts to silence Gilbert and Sullivan songs with controversial lyrics, reject bus ads espousing controversial positions, and declare that words like “target” are just too darn inflammatory for the sensitive, politically-correct ears of CNN viewers, here comes the U.S. Supreme Court, galloping to the rescue with a near unanimous (8-1), ringing reaffirmation that free speech is a bastion of American democracy, even when the speaker or speakers are vicious, unfair, cruel, radical and deluded. Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: “University of Redwood”—Or Perhaps We’re Doomed

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

 

Oregon's Reed College...and, in Universe Beta, the "University of Redwood"

“University of Redwood” exists only in cyber-space, the mutated virtual clone, or perhaps evil twin, of Oregon’s prestigious Reed College. The imaginary institution consists only of a website, which rips off most of the features of Reed College’s website, with pictures of Reed’s faculty as the imaginary “Redwood” faculty, photos of Reed alumni as “Redwood” graduates and even a parallel universe history of the school. Reed’s history section begins,

 

“Reed College was founded in 1908, and its first classes were held in 1911. Reed is named for Oregon pioneers Simeon and Amanda Reed. Simeon Reed had been an entrepreneur in trade on the Columbia River; in his will he suggested that his wife could “devote some portion of my estate to benevolent objects, or to the cultivation, illustration, or development of the fine arts in the city of Portland, or to some other suitable purpose…”

Coincidentally, “Redwood” has a very similar background, according to its site: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quote of the Week: Blogger Jeff Jarvis”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Karl Penny calls me to task here for yielding to another commenter’s premise (but not his conclusion from it) that celebrities lead more interesting lives than their typical fans. Since “interesting” has various meanings—in Charlie Sheen’s case, the ironic Chinese definition (as in “may you live in interesting times”) comes to mind, and I could argue that celebrities by definition lead lives that their fans find more interesting than their own, hence the fact that they are celebrities. Nonetheless, Karl’s point is critical, and I thank him for making it so eloquently. And Karl’s would have been the Comment of the Day even if he hadn’t mentioned my dad—but it didn’t hurt. Here is Karl on “Ethics Quote of the Week: Blogger Jeff Jarvis”:

“Now, Jack: “Nobody denies that rich stars have more interesting lives than their fans,…” Nobody? Hey, what am I? Chopped liver? But, seriously I do deny that celebrities lead more interesting lives than the rest of us. In my experience—and these days, I hear a lot from others about the details of their lives—everyone has a story to tell. Indeed, they have a narrative, and one that is way more interesting, and far more uplifting, than those of the celebrities whose stories are broadcast at us. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

 

Look up "Ethics Dunce" in my dictionary, and this picture is under it.

The “Ethics Dunce” designation was invented for people like Texas Republican state Rep. Debbie Riddle.

 

She has proposed one of the many anti-illegal immigration bills currently being considered in the Texas state legislature. Her brainchild, and I use that term generously, is House Bill 2012. Man, it’s tough! It  would punish those who  “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” hire unauthorized immigrants with penalties up to two years in jail and fines of up to $10,000.

Riddle does have what she considers a reasonable exception, however. She believes it is dastardly to hire illegals, rewarding their disregard of our immigration procedures and willful violation of our laws, and creating an incentive for others to do the same…unless they are hiring a maid, a lawn caretaker or another houseworker! Continue reading →

Outrageous Prosecution: The Eric Rinehart Story

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Asst. U.S. Attorney DeBrotas predecessors

Eric Rinehart, a 34-year-old police officer in  Middletown, Indiana, began consensual sexual relationships with two young women, ages 16 and 17. Rinehart was going through a divorce at the time, and in Indiana, he was doing nothing illegal, for 16 is the age of consent in the Hoosier state? Unethical? I tend to think so, but that isn’t part of the story.

One of the girls told Rinehart that she had posed for erotic photos for an earlier, presumably younger boyfriend, and suggested that she do the same for him. So Rinehart gave her his camera, with which she took the lascivious photos. This inspired Rinehart to take some more sexy photos and at least one video of both girls, which he downloaded to his computer.

For this, Rinehart was convicted on two federal charges of producing child pornography. Continue reading →

United Nations Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

 

After the U.N., Plan B

Ah, the United Nations—can’t live with it, can’t live without it!

 

But I think it may be time for the U.S., having tried to live with a corrupt, hypocritical, impotent monument to how disastrous a one-world government would be—while supplying the lion’s share of its funding— to try living without it.

The U.N. Human Rights Council has issued a 23-page report praising the Gaddafi regime’s human-rights record. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Blogger Jeff Jarvis

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

"If Charlie's unavailable, get this guy. He's hilarious!"

“One way or another, by one definition and diagnosis or another, Charlie Sheen is a sick man. He doesn’t need airtime. He needs couchtime. News people are ill-serving him and the issue of mental illness in this country by putting him on the air as if he were just another source, another celebrity. They are not informing the public. They are exploiting Charlie.”

—Blogger Jeff Jarvis on his site, BuzzMachine, on the media’s disgraceful rush to get celebrity meltdown Charlie Sheen to do as many wacky, self-destructive, “did he really say that?” interviews as possible before he falls completely to pieces as addicts in full denial inevitably do.

Jarvis is right. There is no more news to be milked from the sad Sheen story, other than “Charley continues to say things that are destroying his career, making him dislikable and unemployable, and that prove that he is sick, getting sicker by the day.” This is no less despicable than exhibiting freaks, the brain injured and schizophrenics for the amusement of the crowd. “They want him to act nutty,” says Jarvis. “Ratings, man, ratings.” Continue reading →