Arts & Entertainment

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

—-Former “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien, bidding farewell in his final show. O’Brien was shabbily treated by NBC, beginning with its bait-and-switch game that kept him behind Jay Leno even after his “promotion” to the prestige late night show,  and ending with its making him the scapegoat of a ratings  debacle entirely caused by the cheap and incompetent management of the NBC brass. Conan still managed to preserve his dignity and integrity while keeping his justified anger in control, and exited “Tonight” as gracefully as humanly possible.

Pennsylvania’s and Delaware’s Disgrace: Risking the Poor to Balance the Budgets

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Delaware and Pennsylvania, facing state budget deficits that would require political courage and citizen sacrifice to address, has taken the craven route of other states (with more sure to follow) by legalizing casino gambling.

In Pennsylvania, State Republicans, the majority party in the state senate, had opposed the expansion of gambling , but capitulated when faced with the reality of having to choose between cutting jobs and services or raising taxes. Instead, the Republicans joined with Democrats, those champions of the weak and powerless,  to victimize the poorest people in the state for profit. Continue reading →

On Hoaxes, Avatar, and More Late Night Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Hoax Update

  • Singer, model, television personality and inexplicable celebrity Tia Tequila announced in December that she was engaged to the heiress to the Johnson and Johnson fortune, Casey Johnson. The troubled Johnson turned up dead in squalid circumstances in January, prompting a grief-stricken online statement from Tia in which she spelled her beloved’s name wrong. Shortly after this, it was revealed that the engagement was a publicity stunt by Tequila, who barely knew Johnson. Fake romances for publicity purposes are as old as the Tudors, but this sort of thing further trivializes truth for an entire generation. Continue reading →

Late Night Ethics at NBC, and an Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Conan O’Brien did the only honorable, dignified thing left for him, which was to tell NBC to enjoy the rubble of its schedule, because he wasn’t going to be part of it. Continue reading →

Lies, Scams, Fiascos, and “Saved By the Bell”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Some diverse ethics observations while living the lonely existence of a traveling ethics trainer… Continue reading →

Letterman’s Extortionist Tries A New Theory

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I suppose you have to give Joe Halderman’s lawyer some credit for coming up with a creative defense. If you don’t think too hard about it, it almost makes sense. In a variation on the “everybody does it” ethical rationalization, Halderman’s bid to avoid prison for hitting up David Letterman for two million dollars in hush money (Halderman’s ex-fiancé was one of  the female employees Letterman used in workplace harem) is based on a “Tiger does it” theory. Or to be accurate, “Tiger’s girlfriend did it.” Continue reading →

The 2009 Ethics Alarms Awards, Part 1: The Worst

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Welcome to the first annual Ethics Alarms Awards, recognizing the best and worst of ethics in 2009! These are the Worst; the Best is yet to come. Continue reading →

The Wrong Lesson from Tiger’s Fall

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

So that’s the lesson, is it?

As the year end lists almost unanimously “award” Tiger Woods the distinction of engineering the Scandal of the Year, pundits also seem to be nearing consensus on the lesson we should take from the golfer’s fall, which is: “Don’t make athletes and celebrities your role models or heroes. They are human beings like everyone else, and are guaranteed to disappoint you.”

Oh, I see…it’s all our fault. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Letting a Lying Defendant Testify

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

It’s snowing like crazy outside, and I’m stuck putting the lights on a nine-foot tree.  My only escape from the pine needles assaulting my tender skin is ethics reverie, and I find myself thinking, once again, about the classic criminal defense attorney’s ethical challenge:

What do you do when your guilty client wants to claim he’s innocent in the witness chair, under oath? Continue reading →

“Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew” and Reality Show Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Duncan Roy is a director, producer and writer whom I had never heard of, and I didn’t watch his exploits as a patient/reality show performer on VH1’s “Celebrity Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew .” The reason for the latter was a mixture of ethics and taste: feeding the fame addiction of celebrities while supposedly treating their other addictions seemed wrong to me, and inducing sex-addicted female porn stars, beauty queens and models to go into therapy with similarly attractive and sexually obsessive men is ridiculous, like setting “The Biggest Loser” at a 24 hour, all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. Continue reading →