Year: 2014

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month, Or “You Know, Sometimes The Southern States Really Ask for All The Ridicule They Get”: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

This is, I know, akin to shooting fish in a barrel, as Moore has long established himself as a renegade wacko, notably when he defiantly displayed the Ten Commandments in his court house even after a higher court declared that it was unconstitutional. It’s unethical to violate a court order if you are a judge (duh!), and as a consequence of his silly and expensive grandstanding in defiance of the Establishment Clause (Moore believes that the Government of the United States was established to support Christianity,that’s all there is to it, and nobody is going to convince him otherwise, so there), he was quite properly removed from office by a court order he couldn’t defy.

Oh, never mind ethics, law, the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court and the general advantages of not having a Chief Justice heading your state’s Supreme Court who makes up the law as he goes along: the citizens of Alabama, in their wisdom, elected Moore to be Supreme Court Justice again, and so he is.

WOW. Continue reading →

“To Rialto Unified School District School Administrators: Don’t Be Moronic!” Sorry, But If You have To Write That Memo, It’s Already Too Late…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments
Assignment: Pro or Con: "Sarah Palin is the spawn of Satan." Cite authorities...

Assignment: Pro or Con: “Sarah Palin is the spawn of Satan.” Cite authorities…

Here’s a  helpful hint for middle school teachers: if you are going to ask your students to write essays arguing that the the Holocaust never happened, the fact that your Interim School Superintendent is named “Mohammad Z. Islam” may raise some eyebrows with the JDL. Honestly, when I read this story and saw that name, I was sure it was a hoax that had been picked up by the news media.

Nope. The name is real, but more disturbing, the eighth grade writing assignment in California’s Rialto Unified School District required students to write advocacy essay, based on authority and research, mind you, on “whether or not you believe the Holocaust was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth.” Future topics for pro and con debate: Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Ethical Sentencing, And Terry Lynn Brown Is A Wise And Fair Judge

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
The Andersons: First the system doesn't work, then it does.

The Andersons: First the system doesn’t work, then, miraculously, it does.

This bizarre tale will be adapted into a movie, or Hollywood has lost its mind.

Missourian Mike Anderson was only 23 in 2000 when he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for committing a hold-up at gun-point. He was out on bail, waiting to be ordered to report to prison, and the order never came. He called his lawyer, who said, “Wait for it. Be prepared.”  Anderson even inquired within the system regarding what he was supposed to do, but he got no definitive answer. The order never came, because the official paperwork said he was already in jail.

So Anderson kept waiting, and remained prepared to be arrested and taken to jail at any minute. He didn’t leave the jurisdiction (Mississippi County—and why Missouri has a county with that name is a mystery in itself: no wonder its systems are messed up), and he took no steps to disguise his identity. Anderson started a successful business in construction, married and had children. He coached youth football and volunteered at his church in Webster Groves, Missouri. Then, right about when he would have been released from prison if officials had done their jobs competently, the paperwork error was discovered, and Mike was finally put in jail to serve his original sentence. Continue reading →

Chinese Food Ethics, Mexican Food Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

Chinese Food

In a dilemma reminiscent of my ice cream sundae problem last year, I faced the question of how to ethically respond to yet another food service botch. We ordered a modest dinner from the local Chinese carry-out establishment, and after we got the order home, discovered that it was missing an appetizer. It was raining hard, and when I called the restaurant, they agreed, after putting me through the third degree, that they had screwed up. They said they would deliver it. I was prepared to drive over and pick it up, but at least this allowed us to begin eating the rest of the dinner before it got cold. It took about a half an hour, but my precious pan-fried pork dumplings finally arrived, along with profuse apologizes from the deliverer.

The ethics issue: Should I tip him or not? Continue reading →

A Donald Sterling Ethics Train Wreck Surprise: Something GOOD May Come Out Of This Mess!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

French_Revolution_GuillotineBut I doubt that it will feel very good.

Even more than usual, I was physically nauseated by the Sunday morning network news shows this weekend, which all blurred together in a nightmarish display of how lazy and biased the news media is, and how aggressively it now seeks to make Americans complacent, ignorant, and ethically stunted. I’m not sure which of these journalistic disgraces it was—I think it was “Meet the Press”—where the host, briefly attempting to inject some content into his panel’s obligatory Donald Sterling bashing, asked if it mattered that his comments were intended as private. “There is no privacy any more!” a female panelist exclaimed, not as protest or complaint, but as a dismissive rebuttal. Oh. Well, that settles it then! We should now assume that any of us can be publicly pilloried and humiliated for what we say in our homes, bedroom, automobiles, and safe rooms.  Next issue! Boy, the President killed at the White House Correspondents dinner, didn’t he?

Over at ABC, the token conservative this week in that “roundtable,” Laura Ingraham—the allegedly smart, ultra-right wing, acerbic former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Thomas turned radio host—couldn’t manage the presence of mind or the wit to point out that fellow panelist Van Jones had just compared NBA players—you know, the African Americans who make more money in a week than you make all year?—-to black slaves, and twice at that. What good are you, Laura, if you can be intimidated like that, and allow a shimmering opportunity to illustrate the racial double standard being used today for cynical political ends, so the public might start paying attention? No, Laura had her own agenda, so she wasn’t paying attention. She was there to use the Oklahoma “botched” execution as a platform to inveigh against—abortion. I would call her performance pundit malpractice, but how one can be judged incompetent on a Sunday public issues show, when the shows themselves are journalistic abortions?

Retribution is coming for all, however. Eventually, thanks to the excessive and imprudently unrestrained abuse being heaped on Donald Sterling, these knaves, bumblers and hypocrites are going to have to face the reality of the dilemma they have created for themselves, because the standard they so happily apply to Sterling—deceptively safe and easy because he’s objectively repulsive–is now going to be applied to everyone including their champions and heroes, , and the carnage will be unrelenting. And it will be good for the culture, I think, because like the French Revolution, the force unleashed by the politically correctness bullies, race-hucksters and Bigotry Furies will prove unmanageable, and consume its creators. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Judge Jeanine Howard (Who Is Also The Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month, An Ethics Dunce, And Pretty Much A Blight On The Justice System And American Society In General)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

judge Howard

“There are rape cases that deserve life. There are rape cases that deserve 20 years. Every now and then you have one of those that deserve probation. This is one of those and I stand by it.”

—-Texas District Judge Jeanine Howard explaining her stunningly lenient sentence of probation and community service—“250 hours of community service at a rape crisis center” !—for a confessed rapist of a 14-year old girl at her school.

The sentence  was not merely lenient but probably illegal, and a it seems likely that the sentence will be altered by another judge. Nonetheless, this kind of result, based on the judge’s assessment that the victim was promiscuous and had been pregnant (which she denies) will certainly make other rape victims think twice before they report the crime. Bobby Villareal, executive director of the Dallas Area Rape Crisis  Center, told reporters…

“This is an example of why people don’t come forward and report their sexual assaults because they are not only victimized at the time but the continuing game of shame and blame. They are put on trial again in the judiciary and the media. The things that were said were outrageous and some of them were actually untrue that were reported.”

Judge Howard seemed to be making up the law and sentencing guidelines on the fly. The rapist, 20-year old Sir Young, never denied that he had raped the girl, or that she hadn’t strenuously told him to stop. “Consent is not an issue and it wasn’t an issue because he admitted he didn’t have her consent,”  prosecutor Andrea Moseley said. “When consent is not an issue, a victim’s past is never appropriate for comment. That’s my problem with it as a woman and as a prosecutor. I was certainly disappointed in the message I think it sends to the community.”

The community can send a message back, as Judge Howard is up for re-election in the fall, but it won’t be easy. A Democrat, she is running unopposed. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Dustin McDanielSome attorneys general understand the obligation of a state’s highest legal representation, even if the Attorney General of the United States does not.

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat,told the press yesterday that he personally  he supports allowing same-sex couples to marry,  but will nonetheless continue defending his state’s 2004 ban on gay marriages in court.

The news angle, as reported, was that McDaniel, a Democrat serving his final year as the Arkansas AG, is the first statewide official in conservative Arkansas to back same-sex marriage. Ethically, however, the significance is that although he disagrees with the current law of the state that is his client, he will nonetheless do his duty according to the laws he swore he would uphold….as he should, as an ethical and honorable lawyer who is there to serve the public’s interests, not his own conscience. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Van Jones

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
Slavery, 2014 style.

Slavery, 2014 style.

On this Sunday’s edition of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulis, the weekly gorge-rising moment occurred when former White House “czar” and alleged truther turned pundit Van Jones weighed in on the Donald Sterling saga, noting that in the NBA owner’s taped remarks he arrogantly alluded to the fact that his highly paid NBA players are dependent on him for their livelihood. To plenty of nods and amens around the table (the Sunday talk shows no longer even attempt to attempt partisan or ideological balance), Jones said that this “sounded more like 1814 than 2014.”

I will observe again, though no one in the panel was fair enough to because Sterling is disgusting and doesn’t deserve journalistic fairness, that these comments were spontaneous and off-the-cuff, and not designed to withstand the scrutiny of critical parsing and hostile analysis, as few private conversations are. But that is a secondary point.

The main point is that nobody in the ABC roundtable, including moderator Stephanopoulis, was impertinent, brave, professional or competent enough to note that last week, rancher Cliven Bundy was crucified for making an ignorant statement that minimized the horrors of slavery, and that Jones’s idiotic comparison was as bad or worse. Continue reading →

Are Haunted House Ethics The Same As Murder House Ethics?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Haunted-Homes2

I spent the wee hours last night watching “Insidious 2” (not as scary as “1,” and too confusing to watch while composing ethics blog posts), and, to fend off nightmares, the Wayans’ “A Haunted House” (sillier, grosser and not as funny as their two “Scary Movie” efforts). Naturally, this set me wondering about the ethics of selling a haunted house to an unaware buyer.

I thought I had covered this problem before here and here, where the topic was whether a property owner had an ethical obligation to divulge that the house in question had been the site of gruesome murders or suicides. The law in most states declares caveat emptor, but that’s only the law. The ethics verdict, in my view (but not everyone’s) is this, which my last comment on the topic, in 2013: Continue reading →

The Sterling Backlash: Signature Significance, Racism, Hypocrisy, and Double Standards

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
Bennie Thompson

“No big deal, he’s  just a Congressman…”

I often use the term “signature significance” in posts, and since it is a term that is not often applied to ethics, I thought today would be a perfect time to illustrate it in its original context, while clarifying the ethical murk around the Donald Sterling Ethics Train Wreck.

The original context of the phenomenon of signature significance is baseball, and I just watched an example of it. Today Red Sox left-hander John Lester beat the Oakland A’s, a very good team, by hurling eight innings in which he gave up no runs, only one hit, two bases on balls, while striking out 15 batters. If you don’t know anything about the game, let me tell you: this is extraordinarily good. Pitching performances can be measured and compared by using the “game score” method, developed by sabermetrics (that is, baseball statistics) pioneer Bill James. The best game score ever achieved was 105; the highest score in major league history for a pitcher who did not pitch all nine innings (as with Lester today) is 95, and has only been done once. (Theoretically, a game score could be as high as 145)

James also devised the term “signature significance” in the context of such games. His research showed that pitchers who were not outstanding talents never pitched a game with such a high game score even once—it simply didn’t happen. Thus, he reasoned, pitching a single game like Lester’s (the actual game he used was a similar performance by a young Roger Clemens before anyone knew what Clemens would become) was sufficient proof, all by itself, to conclude fairly and scientifically that the game was meaningful, without any other data. In cases of signature significance, he explained, the usual statistical rule that small sample sizes are not reliable indicators do not apply. Sometimes one incident, performance or episode is sufficient to make a confident verdict.

Signature significance is very useful, I have found, to rebut unethical rationalizations for unethical conduct that are used to excuse the agent of the ethical breach. “It’s only one mistake” and “Anyone can make a mistake” are the main ones. In the case of some serious kinds of bad conduct, this reasoning is misleading and false. Donald Sterling’s comments recorded and publicized by his whatever-you-call-her V. Stiviano have signature significance: they prove he’s a racist. Can you imagine any non-racist individual saying, in public or private, that he didn’t want his girlfriend being seen at his team’s games in the company of blacks?  How could this possibly occur? It wouldn’t, of course. Only those who hold racist attitudes and beliefs think and say such things. Sterling is a racist.

Stiviano, for her part, despite being the one who brought the media, the sports world and the public down on Sterling’s 80-year-old head, now says she doesn’t believe he’s a racist. Of course, she also says she’s his “silly rabbit” and that she is going to be President some day. She is an idiot. But I digress.

Other figures have made statements in the media that also have signature significance of the same sort as Sterling’s, yet the very same groups and journalists who have been whipped into a self-righteous froth over Sterling are strangely silent: Continue reading →