Business & Commercial

Ethics Quote of the Day: Sesame Street

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“Sesame Workshop’s mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world over reach their highest potential. Kevin Clash has helped us achieve that mission for 28 years, and none of us, especially Kevin, want anything to divert our attention from our focus on serving as a leading educational organization. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding Kevin’s personal life has become a distraction that none of us want, and he has concluded that he can no longer be effective in his job and has resigned from Sesame Street. This is a sad day for Sesame Street.”

—— The producers of “Sesame Street,” announcing Kevin Clash’s resignation and the end of his close association with Elmo. A second man just accused Clash of molesting him when he was underage, and Clash’s original accuser, Sheldon Stephens, recently recanted his recantation of  his allegations.

“Goodbye, my friend.”

This ending was pre-ordained from the beginning of the scandal, and Clash’s guilt or innocence was and is irrelevant. Sesame Street’s duty is to Elmo and his fans, not Kevin Clash. “Innocent until proven guilty” also has no application. Clash, if nothing else, is guilty of not being innocent enough to be the voice of the most innocent Muppet on Sesame Street.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Show Us The Way

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

“The operation was a success, but the patient died.”

“We had to destroy the village to save it.”

Massada. That worked out well too.

I’m sure the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union approves of these classic oxymoronic statements, because its members are currently patting themselves on the back for standing up to Hostess Brands, Inc and not giving an inch in contentious labor negotiations that had put them on the picket line. “I think we’re the first ones who have stood up and said, ‘We’re not going to let you get away with it,’” was the message the union’s resolve sent according to  Sue Tapley, the strike captain at the Biddeford, Maine Hostess plant. “You can fight them. You can shut them down.” “Unions have been losing power for years,” added  a striking worker outside of the same plant. “This is an exceptional case. If Hostess had been allowed to get away with what they’d been trying to do, other corporations would have lined up to try the same tactics. Hopefully, this will be an example to other companies not to break their unions.” Continue reading →

Really? The Baby Mop?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

No.

One of the Kantian categorical imperatives is that no human being should ever use another for his or her own selfish objectives. Another ethical principle that is close to absolute is that one should never  exploit children. A third is not to treat human beings as objects, or to denigrate, diminish or humiliate them without their informed consent. A fourth principle is that forced child labor is inherently unethical, and a fifth is that making individuals do work that benefits you without compensation is theft.

HEY! I’ve got a brilliant idea! Let’s help parents turn their babies into living, breathing, drooling mops! Continue reading →

Gen. Allen, Lockheed, John Edwards, Restraint Bias,and Further Musings on the Petraeus-Broadwell Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 62 Comments

Run away!

In no particular order:

  • In a tack that is being duplicated by other commentators on the left, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow essentially pronounced the scandal as much ado about nothing (Columnist E.J. Dionne dismissively referred to Petraeus’s affair as his “little secret”). See, as long as an incident involves sex, the Left’s default position is that it can’t be that bad. Maddow mocked the actions of Jill Kelley, the woman who Broadwell threatened and who alerted the FBI, saying, “Who contacts the FBI because of threatening e-mails? If I did that, they would have to set up a special division just for me.” Ha ha.  How many of your threatening e-mails credibly suggested that the head of an intelligence agency was having an illicit affair with an unstable wacko, Rachel? Kelley did the responsible, intelligent thing given the possible national security implications. But it’s certainly good to know that you wouldn’t…because it’s only sex, of course.
  • Other pundits are complaining that the FBI became involved when what Petraeus did “wasn’t a crime.”  Yes,  it’s the “It’s legal” rationalization. Why people who can’t comprehend that dangerous, destructive, serious misconduct can occur without breaking any laws are allowed to write newspaper columns, I’ll never understand. Petraeus’s affair was a violation of the ethics rules, in an intelligence agency with major responsibilities in national security. That is serious, inherently dangerous, and easily could have led to security breaches that were illegal. If a leader materially, knowingly and publicly violates an ethics rule, he cannot lead. This is why Petraeus, who understands this, resigned, despite the certainty that the Rachel Maddows of the media would have been happy to shrug off his actions as “no big deal.” …because it’s only sex, and “it’s legal.”
  • Kelley still boarded the ethics train wreck, not because of her actions in response to Broadwell’s threat, but in light of the revelation that she was maintaining a hot e-mail relationship with Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The FBI has uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of primarily e-mails containing “potentially inappropriate” communication between Allen and Kelley. Wait, what? Between 20,000 and 30,000 pages? What the hell is going on with our generals? This is obsessive, unhealthy behavior, even if he’s just writing her limericks and recipes. Something is serious amiss in the ethical culture of the U.S. military leadership Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Elmo’s Problem

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

And now, Muppet ethics.

Sorry, Elmo.

Kevin Clash is the voice and operator of beloved Elmo, the cute lttle red monster  on “Sesame Street.”  A young man has accused Clash of molesting him when he was a teen.  Clah denies the allegations, claining that the relationship was between consenting adults. The Children’s Television Workshop says its investigation did not substantaite the accusation; nonetheless, Clash is being disciplined for says the show, is being disciplined for “inappropriate use of company email,” and is unlikely to have his hand in Elmo any time soon, if ever again. The alleged victim is probably not through with Clash, and this could get ugly.

Your Ethics Quiz challenge, should you choose to accept it, is this:

Assuming nothing illegal is proven regarding Clash’s sexual relationship with the accuser, and it remains a “he said/he said” dispute, should Clash remain the voice and puppeteer behind “Sesame Street’s” most innocent character? Continue reading →

Be Careful What You Wish For Dept.: “Occupy” May Finally Have a Plan, and Sure Enough, It’s Ethically Bats

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Oh, yes,THIS is bound to work out well…

The core of my objection to Occupy Wall Street and its progeny was and is that it never had the discipline, cohesion or communications skills to make it clear what the “movement” really wanted to accomplish, other than generally blaming all the world’s ills on the wealthy and successful. This was the reason for its failure, though Occupy fans like to say that it “succeeded” by starting a national dialogue about corporate executive salaries and the growing disparity in income levels between the richest and the poorest Americans—as if that dialogue hadn’t been ongoing long  before the first sign went up in Zuccotti Park.

Now there are signs that the Occupy bitter-enders are hard at work launching a real, substantive effort with a specific goal, albeit and insane one: to bring down the financial system with a “debt strike.” ( In These Times headlined its story about this “You Are Not A Loan.” Pretty clever!) The idea is to refuse to pay back the interest or principal on outstanding debt, and to insist that all loans and interest  be forgiven, since the debt system is inherently corrupt and rigged to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich.

We shouldn’t have to expend a lot of argument on why this is unethical. People, companies and nations in serious debt reach that point because they spend more money than they have. They borrow money promising to repay, agreeing to pay an additional fee, interest, for the privilege of using money that doesn’t belong to them. The vast majority of debt is not amassed by desperate debtors who have to deal with the equivalent of Loan Shark Larry and risk broken legs or death unless they pay unconscionable fees. Most debt comes from wanting something before you can pay for it. While laws are in place to minimize predatory lending and to provide a safety net (in the form of bankruptcy) so people and companies don’t end up destitute and in debtor’s prison, essentially the system, like society itself, exists on trust, the cornerstone of all ethics.  Lenders give their money to trustworthy loan-seekers, and charge higher interest rates to those who they deem less trustworthy. That is fair. Continue reading →

Are Employers Ethically Obligated Not To Take Advantage of Women’s Negotiation Choices?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

 

Yet another career for Shatner—coaching female job-seekers.

A recent study of 2500 job seekers indicated that men are far more likely to negotiate salary and benefits in job situations where it has no been stated that the salary is negotiable.

I am not surprised. Running non-profit organizations with limited resources, I always ended up with primarily female staffs because women would accept a lower offer than men with similar qualifications. This meant that the women got the jobs for salaries their male competition turned down. This, in turn, may have effected their salaries for a long time to come, in subsequent jobs. Is this bias?

Clearly not. The negotiations between an employer and potential employee are ethical and the conditions are known. A skilled negotiator (I am personally incompetent at negotiating my own fee; in ProEthics, my partner handles all of that) will get a better deal; a poor or reluctant negotiator will get terms more advantageous to the employer. It is not bias if the most aggressive and effective negotiators happen to be men.  Continue reading →

Porn and the NFL: In Search of A Biased Referee

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

With condoms, what, 2.5 X’s?

55% of California voters decided yesterday to make porn stars wear condoms on the job—good for their health, bad for the health of the state’s booming XXX film industry. It is a reasonable guess that injecting condoms into the proceedings will put California’s porn products at a significant competitive disadvantage, and also a reasonable guess that the voters who enacted the measure couldn’t care less. So legal enterprises may go bust, their employees may lose their careers, and consumers may lose a form of entertainment they crave because of the policy priorities of those who hold all three in low regard, and who are unlikely to apply any kind of balancing standard. It’s safer for all concerned to require condoms, that’s all. Porn companies, porn careers, porn lovers—who cares about what they want? Continue reading →

Hyundai: Ethics Corrupter

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

As we try to build an ethical culture, it doesn’t help to have amoral corporations employing ethics-challenged advertising flacks to send America toxic messages about honesty and trust. Hyundai, in its campaign for the 2013 Santa Fe, represents family members keeping secrets from each other and parents enlisting their children as accomplices in lies as funny, normal and cute. “Don’t tell mom,” a father orders, in the midst of a movie that will give his young children nightmares, and other misadventures (including one incident of father-led vandalism.). “Don’t tell Dad,” says Mom, after taking her son parasailing. I’m presuming she’ll have to tell him when her son breaks his neck on their next flight. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The Single Mother Tip-Stiffer

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

According to a poster on Reddit, a woman allegedly left the message above on her receipt after eating a pricey meal at a restaurant. “Single mom, sorry,” she wrote, in the space left for a tip. “Thank you—it was great!” The furious waiter’s colleague scanned and posted  the receipt, with appropriate invective that has been matched and exceeded by others on the site.

As usual, there are denials that the story is genuine, and claims that some single mother-hating trouble-maker created this miserable ethics smoking gun. “I think this bill is a fraud because I’ve met very few single mothers who expected to get special treatment for their status. They’re just hoping no one holds their situation against them,” wrote one skeptic. This is the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in Technicolor. The fact, if it is a fact, that few single mothers expect special treatment doesn’t prove that this one didn’t or doesn’t. Continue reading →