Month: March 2011

Air Passenger Etiquette: Who Gets the Armrests?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

A site called Neatorama polled various ethicists, travelers and air flight experts regarding who should get the armrests when all three seats in a row in coach are occupied.

Actually, the graphic accompanying the column suggests that it also discusses two other flyingetiquette issues as well: do you recline your seat, and if you have a window seat and need to use the rest room when the other two passengers are asleep, what do you do?

Ah, air travel. Such a pleasure.

I can’t find any answers to those in the column, though, and that’s fine I know them already: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Mayor Trivial T. Spineless

He was, without question, the best mayor Fort Wayne, Indiana has ever had. When he first took office, he consolidated city departments launched construction of Fort Wayne’s massive underground sewage system and built the city sewage treatment plant, which is used to this day, seventy years later. When W.W. II came, he held war materials drives, upgraded city equipment and services, and broke ground for was is now Fort Wayne International Airport. and lowered city tax rates. In his last term, he opened up a major area of the town for development by elevating the railroad tracks. And he kept taxes low.

For 21 years beginning in 1934, this dedicated public servant was only not mayor for three years: he died at his post in 1954. And the people of Ft. Wayne haven’t forgotten him. This year, when city officials asked its citizens to vote on whose name the new government center should bear, the response was overwhelming. Ten times more people again voted for the former mayor they had always voted for while he was alive than for anyone or anything else (the runner-up choice was “Thunderdome”).

The current mayor, however, has decided not follow the results of the poll. He thinks the name would be inappropriate. You see, the famous leader that the people of Fort Wayne want to honor was named Harry Baals.

The current mayor’s name?  Trivial T. Spineless. Continue reading →

Blogger’s Ethical Dilemma: The New York Times’ New Plan

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

I'm gonna hate to lose you guys!

The New York Times announced yesterday that it will begin charging for content on its website. After 20 articles have been read by any user within a month, that user will be required to purchase a $15 a month access fee, or forgo the “Grey Lady,” online at least. (Subscribers to the paper will have still have unlimited free access to the digital version.)

For bloggers like me, who rely on hundreds of on-line sources for my ethics commentary, the new Times plan poses an ethical dilemma. Continue reading →

Comments of the Day: “Bully Ethics…”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I was in New York all day, and returned to find a plethora of excellent comments on the post, “Bully Ethics: Lessons from Casey the Punisher.” Two of the finest follow, and they go well together: Michael on the dilemma facing the bullied child, and Lianne on her family’s solution.

First, Michael:

“Bullies only understand violence. If you are being bullied, how can you stop it? Continue reading →

Bully Ethics: Lessons From “Casey the Punisher”

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

 

Go get him, Ralphie!

The YouTube video of the tormented 16-year-old Australian student who provides a surprise ending to a 12-year-old bully’s fun at his expense by suddenly slamming the younger boy to the ground—breaking the bully’s ankle in the process— has set off an international debate that could help clarify some important ethical dilemmas regarding bullying, or muddle them further.

 

The video shows a heavy teen, one who classmates say has been bullied by other children for years, enduring repeated punches by a smaller student as his humiliation is being videoed for posterity. Then, emulating Ralphie’s sudden rage against the evil Scut Farkus in one of “A Christmas Story’s” iconic scenes, he suddenly fights back…and how. Continue reading →

Six Tell-Tale Signs of Biased News Stories

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Ethics critic. Really.

If you know “Cracked” at all, you probably remember its as Mad Magazine’s not-quite-as-funny competitor in the juvenile humor magazine market.  But yesterday’s rip-off humor rag is today’s clever website, and this week it unveiled a clever and useful article about the various ways print journalists slant the news. I have written about many of them, but Cracked writer C. Corville has done a thorough, perceptive, and entertaining job, identifying a couple I had missed. And she’s right.

Cracked’s “6 Subtle Ways The News Media Disguises Bullshit As Fact” are, in reverse order:

 

6. Weasel Words

5. Implying Without Saying

4. Burying Inconvenient Facts

3. Biased Photos

2. The Active Voice

1. Guessing the Motives Instead of Reporting the Facts

Excellent work. I recommend it highly.

The SATs: Flat Learning Curve=Unfair Questions

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The secret to acing your SATs? Know your Kardashians!

After all the anger, debate and controversy in the Sixties over affirmative action and the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, with the case finally being made to the public’s satisfaction that including test questions  based on cultural references likely to be unfamiliar to African-Americans or lower-income students (such as, famously, questions about yachting) negatively affected their test scores, wouldn’t you think that it would have been thoroughly understood by the people who make up the SAT scores that questions with a cultural bias were inherently unfair and incompetent questions?

Here is the prompt for the essay question in the SAT test given to high school students across the country last week : Continue reading →

Unethical Crime Victim of the Month: Kamofie & Co.

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Next time, Lindsay, pick a classier store to rob.

Lindsay Lohan, in addition to having stunningly bad judgment, multiple addictions, lousy parents, sycophantic friends, and an army of paid enablers, also has rotten luck. When she walked out of a jewelry store wearing a $2,500 necklace, she picked an ethically dubious enterprise, Kamofie & Co., that may have  grossly over-priced the necklace, turning the shoplifting into grand theft. But that’s just the beginning.

Lohan, who is on probation and facing jail time for the incident, was caught on a surveillance tape in January as she strolled out of the store, with the unpurchased jewelry around her neck. Some establishments, recognizing the alleged thief as someone who is famous, troubled, and in need of some kindness, would have privately contacted the actress, accepted her (probably) false excuse that the act was inadvertent, and allowed her to return the item with involving the police.

Not Kamofie, however, which apparently saw the incident as an opportunity to make itself a household word. Continue reading →

PETA’s Definition of Being Ethical to Animals: Kill Them

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Good...play dead, and maybe PETA will leave you alone...

I have long believed that PETA, the Norfolk, Virginia-based “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,” not only gave ethics a bad name, but also people, and you might as well throw in pita bread while you’re at it. This conviction was partially based on such stunts as PETA’s using Michelle Obama in ads without her permission and offering to pay Octomom money to put a billboard on her lawn comparing herself to an overly fecund pet.

Then there is PETA’s fondness for killing puppies and kittens. Continue reading →

No Time for Brackets

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Thank God THAT's taken care of...

I don’t need to go into great detail on this; either it bothers you, or it doesn’t.

I strongly suspect there are many of President Obama’s supporters who are bothered, but will never admit it: hence the silence from the mainstream media. I am certain that there are many on the Right who are bothered, but since they are bothered by everything the President does, their annoyance is easy to dismiss. Many, I know, won’t see it, can’t see it, don’t care, and will just turn their attention other matters with a shrug, if that. For my part, I am bothered because I believe that leaders have to be competent and to engender trust by showing good judgment, and I believe the President of the United States has an added obligation to maintain the weight, credibility, and honor of the office, and therefore its strength.

President Obama’s special invitation to ESPN to come to the White House and announce his bracket picks for the NCAA basketball tournament was as frightening a demonstration of tone-deaf leadership malpractice as I have seen, or read about, from any of the 12 U.S. Presidents of my lifetime. Continue reading →