Month: April 2012

No Boating Accident: The NBC 911 Scandal, and the News Media’s Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Yup...boating accident! George Zimmerman looks cute in this photo, don't you think?

NBC completed its internal investigation into why the middle of the audio of George Zimmerman’s 911 call was edited out, making him sound like a racist. To recap, here is what was on the recording:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

And here’s the version played on NBC, MSNBC, and posted on the MSNBC website:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good.  He looks black.

This was no boating accident: this was the Great White shark of intentional news media misrepresentation and tape doctoring, in the middle of a racially charged incident, with one man dead and his killer being subjected to credible death threats, and irresponsible demagogues accusing him of a hate crime. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Residents of Ward 8, District of Columbia

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Here’s an all-too-brief synopsis of the political career of Marion Barry, City Councilman for Ward 8 in the District of Columbia

  • As Mayor of Washington, D.C. from 1979- 1991, he appointed unqualified and corrupt cronies to key positions, many of whom, under his watch, either embezzled government funds or otherwise lined their own pockets. Barry set the standard by spending lavishly on his own travel and amenities while keeping the actual expenditures secret. His multiple infidelities to his wife and abuse of cocaine and alcohol was widely publicized. He hired loyal supporters for jobs they either could not or did not do, swelling the D.C. budget and lowering service to abyssal levels. Wards that did not vote his way when he came up for election didn’t get their streets plowed. Contracts were awarded to Barry’s political connections rather than by such quaint criteria as cost-effectiveness and demonstrated  ability to perform. Each year of his tenure, the budget deficit got worse, crime and violence rose, and Barry’s addictions and illegal drug use became more obvious. Finally, he was caught on camera smoking crack, arrested, and forced to resign. The accumulated charges against him, including more than one drug possession charge and multiple counts of perjury still didn’t stick, because Barry Squad jurors hung the jury with absurd claims that the mayor was the victim of a “racist conspiracy.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Mirlande Wilson

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

"Share? Why should I share?"

Mirlande Wilson was part of a lottery pool formed in the Maryland McDonald’s where she works, and claims that she bought one of the three winning tickets that will split the $640 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot. But Wilson told the New York Post that although she did take part in the pool, she bought the winning ticket on her own and has no intention of splitting the winnings. A co-worker who took part in the pool dispute’s Wilson’s story and says Wilson was given additional money late Friday night to buy extra lottery tickets before the Mega Millions drawing.

Why are people like this? Yes, I know, greed…still: does winning a fortune have to turn people into utter, irredeemable jerks? Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: What To Do With a Bad Seed?

/ Jack Marshall / 59 Comments

A horror story from Cowlitz County, Washington:

Little Rhoda didn't know what she was doing was bad! Suuuuuure she didn't...

When she was was 11 years old, Cassandra Ann Kennedy decided that her father didn’t love her enough, and that she would have a happier life if he wasn’t around any more. So that she made up a story that her father had raped her, told police, and..voila! In 2002 her father was convicted of rape and  sent to 15 years in a Washington state prison.

In January of 2012, Cassandra, now 23,  confessed that it was all a lie. “I did a horrible thing,” Cassandra told detectives. “It’s not OK to sit and be locked in this horrible place for something you didn’t do. It’s just not right.”

Figured that out all by yourself, did you, Cassie? Continue reading →

Jimmy Kimmel Is Still An Evil, Child-Abusing Jerk, and Apparently I’m The Only One Who Notices

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I have written twice before about ABC late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s penchant for urging his viewers to inflict emotional distress on their trusting children, because Jimmy and other mean-spirited jerks get a big kick out of watching kids scream and cry following cruelty from their parents. As I wrote the last time Kimmel issued one of his “challenges,” which was to spoil Christmas for your kid by giving them  horrible gifts (like a half-eaten sandwich):

“Children are not props for Jimmy Kimmel’s sadistic amusement, and parents who are willing to use their children this way… are, to be blunt, rotten, despicable, and untrustworthy parents. Something important—Compassion? Kindness? Empathy? Loyalty? Responsibility? Love? — is absent in their parental make-up, and that void is being cynically exploited by Kimmel, who has crossed the threshold from arrested adolescent to full-fledged villain. Since Kimmel has twice been rewarded with positive publicity for egging on parents to harm their kids, what can we expect next from Jimmy?…There’s almost no limit to the great YouTube videos one can create when you’re willing to lie to your kids to upset them.”

Well, now we know. Jimmy asked parents to pre-chew their kids food and serve it to them, to see their horrified reactions. Last night, he showed the hysterically funny “winners.” One disgusted and enraged teenage girl, finally told by her folks that the prank was Jimmy Kimmel’s idea, said to the camera, resoundingly, “You suck, Jimmy!”

Indeed he does. Continue reading →

Why Does American Public Education Stink? The Answer: Incompetence, Stupidity, and Fear. The Proof: THIS…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Ah, that look that only a dedicated New York public school teacher can spark!!!

Over at Popehat, Ken has been on another roll, and his latest effort, as depressing and enraging as it is, is a real contribution to our understanding of the kind of entrenched foolishness, cowardice and incompetence in our nation’s public school administration that is gradually rendering the schools useless and our children uneducated.

Spurred by a New York Post story that seemed too horrible to be true, Ken set out to research the claim that the New York School system has compiled a long list of topics that are banned on student tests for a variety of reasons, prime among them that someone, somewhere, will be offended by them.  After some digging on the New York City Department of Education’s websites, what he found  was worse than how the Post had described it.

In an Appendix, he discovered a list of  test question topics “that would probably cause a selection to be deemed unacceptable by the New York City Department of Education… In general, a topic might be unacceptable for any of the following reasons:

  •   The topic could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students that might hamper their ability to take the remainder of the test in the optimal frame of mind.
  •     The topic is controversial among the adult population and might not be acceptable in a state-mandated testing situation.
  •     The topic has been ―done to death in standardized tests or textbooks and is thus overly familiar and/or boring to students.
  •     The topic will appear biased against (or toward) some group of people.

Using those criteria, and undoubtedly using astounding numbers of hours and taxpayer dollars, the Department came up with the following jaw-dropping list of banned test subjects. I’ll flag with red the taboos that are especially outrageous or idiotic, though perhaps I should note the two or three that might be appropriate. Continue reading →

George Zimmerman and the “Racial Profiling” Canard

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Racists, all of 'em.

On the frequently disgusting but reliably gripping CBS drama “Criminal Minds,” viewers quickly get accustomed to hearing the FBI profiler heroes alert police and public to be on the look-out for a “white, middle-aged man.” Why man? Easy: virtually all serial killers are male. Why white? Same thing: although a rare black serial killer comes along (the D.C. snipers were African-American), the vast majority of serial killers from Jack the Ripper onward have been Caucasian.

You know, I just don’t feel denigrated by the fictional FBI’s alert (the real FBI would do the same.) Telling the public that the individual butchering prostitutes or massacring families is the same race as I am isn’t bias, bigotry or racism, it’s logic. It is also, beyond question, racial profiling, which, under the right circumstances, makes sense, prevents crime, catches criminals, and isn’t unethical or racist in the least.

So effectively have civil rights advocates and the media managed to bias the public against rational racial profiling, however, that the phrase itself has become a synonym for racism. When you mangle and distort a descriptive term in this way, blurring the distinctions between phrases and concepts, the culture gets a lobotomy and forced aphasia. What is the term for a fair and legitimate conclusion that a particular crime in a particular area is more likely to be performed by one race than another? Right now, the term is racism. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: President Obama (Sigh!)

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“Ultimately I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

—President Obama speaking in the White House Rose Garden about the Supreme Court’s deliberations on the constitutionality of Obamacare.

Obama made John Marshall roll over in his grave. We Marshalls just hate that,,,

This is the kind of presidential dishonesty that drives me bonkers, I must confess. It manages to deceive and misinform. It is dependent on the ignorance of  the public, so it is also condescending, disrespectful, and cynical, in addition to being an intentional  lie.

Not a lie, you say? Perhaps a mistake? Sorry, no dice: Obama was advertised as a former constitutional law expert and a Harvard Law School whiz. He can’t claim now that he’s really a babe in the woods when it comes to the Law of the Land and judicial history.

Unprecedented? The power of the Court to overturn unconstitutional acts of Congress was established by precedent, when Chief Justice John Marshall—love that name—led the court to invalidate the Judiciary Act of 1789. Is Obama playing games with “democratically-elected Congress,” since the Senate wasn’t elected directly until 1912, with the passage of the 17th Amendment. I suppose so…if challenged, he can say that he is still right, because all of Congress wasn’t elected “democratically” in 1789. Of course, few Americans know that, so the statement qualifies as deceit. Continue reading →

Diversity Ethics: “The Ethicist” vs. The Diversity Bullies

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Here you are, Ariel—the perfect, diverse, five-person panel!

Ariel Kaminer, the New York Times’ author of “The Ethicist” column, is being pummeled by criticism by people other than me, for a change. Her offense? Let one of the critics, Kathleen Geier of the Washington Monthly, speak for herself:

“Ethicist columnist Ariel Kaminer has announced a contest inviting omnivores to write essays about why it is ethical to eat meat. The problem? The panel of luminaries she’s selected to judge the contest are ethicists Peter Singer and Andrew Light, food writers Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, and novelist Jonathan Safer Foer. All, as you may notice, white dudes…for heaven’s sake, by now it should be second nature for every single person who’s in the position of hiring someone, or putting together a panel or committee, to make an effort to include women and people of color whenever possible. That’s just basic human decency.”

Then we have bioethicist Francis Keisling, who weighed in with an indignant protest to the Times ombudsman, writing in part,

“…Finally, what would we expect from the Times and its columnists and editors when a mistake is pointed out in plenty of time for it to be corrected? Does having a column in the Times mean never having to say you are sorry? Ms Kaminer knew no women of comparable stature to the men she chose. She has been clearly shown she was wrong and names provided. All she needed to do was to say woops, let me add three of four women, people of color etc. It would also seem something editors should step in and make happen.”

Welcome, Ariel, to the world of the diversity bullies! Continue reading →

Senator Vitter Thinks Bribery and Extortion Are Ethical

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"...and U.S. Senators..."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was initially restricted to a lower salary than other Cabinet members because he was a U.S. Senator when the salaries were raised. The Constitution bars members of the House and Senate from appointment to any U.S. office where compensation was increased during the lawmaker’s term. (Did you know that? I didn’t.)  President George W. Bush in 2008 signed legislation rolling back the Interior Secretary’s salary so that President Obama Salazar could appoint Salazar.

Once Salazar joined the Obama Cabinet, however, he was eligible for a raise. But Senator David Vitter (R-La.) saw a chance for some leverage. He wrote Salazar to inform him that he would place a hold on the bill to raise his salary until Salazar agreed to approve six new deep-water oil drilling permits every month. In effect, Vitter threatened to withhold over $19,000 in salary that Salazar had every right to receive in order to force him to take the actions Vitter favored. How does Vitter’s conduct differ from offering a bribe? No at all, as far as I can see. How does it differ from extortion? Not much. Vitter was trying to force a Cabinet officer make decisions motivated by his own financial interest rather than what he believed was in the best interest of the nation. He was creating an unethical conflict of interest. Continue reading →