Month: December 2011

Ethics Dunce: Alec Baldwin…and Anybody That Sympathizes Or Defends Him In Any Way, Shape or Form

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"I'm a certified jerk, AND I play one on TV!"

Like Ashton Kutcher and Charlie Sheen, Alec Baldwin is a mega-jerk actor who plays mega-jerks superbly.  Designating him as an Ethics Dunce is like shooting fish in a barrel. Still, there is a material difference between portraying a fictional jerk that people laugh at and behaving like one in real life without apology. Baldwin’s stunt on an American Airlines flight yesterday and his subsequent comments about it mark him as a very special breed of self-entitled jerk, and should, in a culture that understands that admiring jerks is the equivalent of endorsing their warped values, lead to his decline in popularity.

We shall see.

Baldwin was quite properly tossed off an American Airlines flight when he repeatedly defied a flight attendant’s request, then command, that he turn off his iPad, on which he was playing a game. The actor, like the arrested development case he apparently is, retired with his game to the plane’s bathroom, slamming the door, and also verbally abused the attendants. Continue reading →

TV Payola and the Shameless Alison Rhodes

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

" 'Conflict of interest?' What's that?"

She’s not the only one, apparently. But consumer product reviewer Alison Rhodes (“The Safety Mom”), a frequent guest on national, syndicated and local TV shows, not only reviews products whose manufacturers have paid her to mention them, she is unapologetic about it.

Today’s Washington Post reveals that Rhodes, who can be seen on such shows as “Regis and Kelly”, “Today” and “Good Morning America!” as well as local news outlets around the country, raved on the air about a home electronic monitor and a backpack with a built-in alarm known as the iSafe bag without telling either viewers or producers that she had accepted payola from their makers. Rhodes, however, shrugs off the issue. She tells the Post that she doesn’t see any problem, because “I’m not going to take on any engagement with a client unless I believe in their product.”  Amazing. Meanwhile, the news programs the Post interviewed claim that they had no inkling that Rhodes was plugging the product of a client.

This brazen deception of the public is inexcusable, but the shamelessness—or ignorance— of Rhodes and the negligence of those who give her exposure are worse. Continue reading →

Bachmann and Elijah

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"Psst! My mom is gay and doesn't need fixing. What's 'gay'?"

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s views on homosexuality are antediluvian and ignorant. Almost anything that causes her discomfort as a result of her bigotry is to be fervently desired. Almost anything. One exception is a mother using her child as a weapon against her in a war he doesn’t understand.

In the video conveniently taken by a friend of 8-year-old Elijah’s mother and subsequently posted on YouTube, the child reluctantly, after much prodding, whispers “My mom is gay and she doesn’t need fixing” in the strange Minnesota Congresswoman’s ear. If it makes some people happy to believe that Elijah did this on his own, I suppose that’s a plus; this makes two plusses when added to Bachmann’s probable pique. Sorry, it’s not enough. I know it wouldn’t create a viral video if Elijah’s mother delivered her sentiment herself, but that’s just too bad: children are not puppets, props or trained terriers, and using them to deliver political messages is unethical—unfair, irresponsible, a breach of trust, and an abuse of power. Placing a child’s programmed act on Youtube, where it will haunt him forever, just adds to the offense,

Elijah’s message was inaccurate. His mother does need fixing, just not in the way Michele Bachmann thinks she does.

 

Ethics Quiz: The Conundrum of the Imaginary Editor

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

The above staff bio is featured on  VibrantNation.com, a website styled as “the leading online community for Baby Boomer women – the place where they connect and support each other on issues unique to life after 50.” The “composite staff member” known as Susan Lee Ward even has her by-line on some articles.

Your Ethics Quiz Question:

Is featuring an imaginary editor on a website unethical if it is fully disclosed? Or is it just batty?

The problem is one that has come up before: does disclosing something as an untruth cleanse it of its unethical characteristics? After all, there is no Susan Lee Ward, yet she is listed as an editor. That picture can’t possibly be her, because there is no “her.” Anyone who doesn’t read staff bios will in fact be deceived–and how often do you read website staff bios? Heck, people still write me angry e-mails saying that they don’t know who is writing all these ethics essays.

As usual, this comes down to a matter of trust. Are we less likely to trust a website that posts the bio and picture of a staff member who doesn’t exist? Or are we more likely to trust a website that tells us that it has invented an editor? OR are we less likely to trust a website that says it has invented a website for new-agey reasons that don’t really make much sense? When a publication uses fake editors, I wonder who or what they are trying to hide.

My reluctant call on this one: I don’t distrust the site because it has invented an editor. It has made a good faith effort to be transparent.

I distrust the site because inventing an editor for the stated reasons tells me that the real staff is insane.

[Thanks to Health News Review for finding this.]

Sorry, Mystery Thief: You’re No Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

In fact, you’re still a thief.

That C-note isn't worth the $20, Mystery Theif. Nice try.

The UPI reported that an elderly Seattle man who stole money from a store more than 60 years ago “returned it last week — with interest.”

Aw. Except he didn’t.

The manager of a downtown Sears store says the man handed over an envelope containing a hundred dollar bill and a note to the customer desk, reading..

“During the late [1940s] I stole some money from the cash register in the amount of $20-$30. I want to pay you back this money in the amount of $100 to put in your theft account.”

I’m not impressed. He’s had the use of the money for more than 60 years, and now he’s financially secure, so he thinks he can make everything square and clear his conscience. He can’t. Theft is a wrong when it occurs, and unless it is voluntarily undone before any consequences result, there is no going back that clears the ethical slate. But this guy didn’t even try very hard. According to the useful calculator you (and he) can find here, the current day worth of $20 in 1948 is…

    $181.0  using the Consumer Price Index
   $153.00 using the GDP deflator
   $309.00 using the unskilled wage
    $375.00 using the Production Worker Compensation
    $510.00 using the nominal GDP per capita
   $1,080.00 using the relative share of GDP

…and that’s without interest.

So now he’s stealing brownie points.

(By the way…nice work, UPI. Was it really such a stretch to check out the “with interest” claim?)

Now THAT’s Hypocrisy! OWS Protester Tracy Postert, Hypocrite of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Tracy Postert, before and after. Integrity is not a job requirement on Wall Street.

Out of work Ph.D Tracy Postert spent 15 days at Zuccotti Park advocating revolution, condemning the corruption of Wall Street and decrying the moral bankruptcy of the capitalist system. Then she decided to hold up a sign advertising her degree and specialty while she was protesting the evil ways of the financial district. Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst for John Thomas Financial Brokerage, saw her on the street, was intrigued by her background in biomedical science, and took her resume. Then he asked her if she’d like to come for an interview.

Kaufman offered her a job as a junior analyst evaluating medical companies as potential investments, and she accepted. Postert has now just completed her third week as paid employee of the system she was railing against on the street, studying for exams to be a certified financial analyst.

“I want to get a perfect score,” she told the New York Post. She gets a perfect hypocrisy score already. Imagine Martin Luther King agreeing to accept  a special membership in all-white country club, or taking a lucrative job as Sen. Strom Thurmond’s advisor on racial matters. Imagine Jane Fonda signing an Army contract to recruit soldiers for the Vietnam War. Wall Street and capitalism were the embodiment of evil and injustice for Postert, until she had a chance to move from the “99%” to the 1% whose values she had sneered at.

Is there anything wrong with working as a Wall Street analyst? Hell no—unless you have derided Wall Street analysts as the scum of the earth before you had the chance to be one. I don’t assume that Tracy Postert is typical of all OWS protesters, but I am confident she is typical of many of them. Not principled, but angry. Not idealistic, but envious. Not serious, but cynical. In other words, hypocrites, just waiting for the opportunity to show it.

Here is the irony. The fact that Wall Street would make a job offer to someone as ethically inert as this intellectually dishonest and feckless class warrior shows that Occupy Wall Street is not entirely wrong about the dearth of ethical values in the business community

And the fact that an Occupy Wall Street protester would accept such an offer shows that Wall Street may be right about the protesters.

“It’s A Wonderful Life” Ethics, Part 3

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Here is the final installment of the Ethics Alarms overview of the ethical issues raised in Frank Capra’s classic. Some of the comments on Parts 1 and 2 have suggested that my analysis is unduly critical. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love the movie, and have already said that I find it ethically inspiring. Noting that characters act unethically in a movie about ethics is no more criticism than pointing out that people in horror movies never just leave when things start getting weird (as I would). I know that their actions drive the plot and are necessary. This is, however, how an ethicist watches a movie with as many ethical choices as “It’s A Wonderful Life.” I can’t help it.

Now back to George, Mary, and Bedford Falls:

11. Uncle Billy screws up as we knew he would

11.  Christmas Eve arrives in Bedford Falls, and Uncle Billy manages to forget that he left the week’s deposits in the newspaper he gave to Mr. Potter. Thus more than $8,000 is missing on the same day that the bank examiner is in town. Why is Uncle Billy still working for the Savings and Loan? He’s working there because George, like his father, is putting family loyalty over fiduciary responsibility.  Potter, of course, is a thief; by keeping the lost money to trap George, he’s committing a felony, and an unnecessary one. As a board member on the Savings and Loan, Billy’s carelessness and George’s negligence in entrusting him with the bank’s funds would support charges of misfeasance. Mr. Potter, had he played fair, might have triumphed over George legitimately, and no Christmas miracle or guardian angel could have saved him. But this is the inherent weakness and fatal flaw of the habitually unethical: since they don’t shrink from using unethical devices, they often ignore ethical ways to achieve the same objectives that would be more effective.

12. George folds under pressure Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Another Santa Assassin”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The Comment of the Day is a short and pithy one from Fred, inspired by the essay from 2005 I posted in response to yet another report of a Scrooge-like elementary school teacher taking it upon herself to enlighten young children about the non-existence of Santa Claus. That essay involved a substitute teacher named Theresa Farrisi.

Here is his Comment of the Day, on “Another Santa Assassin”:

“The three ages of man: He believes in Santa Claus; he does not believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus.

Farrisi obviously never made it to the third stage and discovered the ultimate truth about Santa Claus. For me, each stage had its own appeal: First the magic; then maturing and being let in on the literal truth while protecting the magic for my younger brother; then being Santa and bringing the magic to my kids. That was by far the most rewarding.”

Was Butch Cassidy a Sexual Harasser?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The story out of South Boston about a young student who fought off a bully’s school bus attack by kicking him in the groin and is now being investigated by the school for sexual harassment (inappropriate touching, don’t you know!) made me think of many things.

It made me think of the Chinese proverb that “When the only tool one has is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” And its longer version, which adds “especially if you are a school administrator….”. And the even longer version, which concludes with “who has the IQ of a gerbil and the judgment of Lindsay Lohan”.

It made me think about how the education profession might end the long reign of journalism as the Ethics Alarms “Most Unethical Profession” winner this year. That would be remarkable, since journalists have been especially vigorous in disgracing themselves in 2011, but education is certainly making a spirited year-end rally.

Mostly, however, it made me think of Butch Cassidy. Continue reading →

Unethical Headline of the Week: Pravda

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The headline:

Noah’s Ark Officially Found in Turkish Mountains

The story, by reporter Irina Shlionskaya, concludes this way:

“Many discussions have taken place since the “official” discovery of Noah’s Ark. Some scientists say that Wyatt indeed discovered the Biblical vessel, whereas others deny this theory. The search for the Ark still continues.”

In other words, the Ark hasn’t been “officially found.” Some officials declared it found, which means nothing at all.

It is nice to be reminded, however, that it isn’t only the American media that does things like this.