Business & Commercial

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 →

Unethical Website of the Month:charlesphillipsandyavaughniewilkins.com

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

It seems to be down now, but the odor lingers on. And there is the matter of the billboards..

Let us stipulate, without really knowing, that YaVaughnie Wilkins has legitimate grievances with  her married former boyfriend, the distinguished Charles E. Phillips, who is president of tech conglomerate Oracle and a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Let us assume that she was legitimately heartbroken and angry when he returned to his wife recently after engaging in an eight year affair with Wilkens, and that YaVaughnie (YaVaughnie??)  was taken by surprise, since Phillips’ wife had filed for divorce two years ago.

Never mind. Creating and publicizing a website, http://www.charlesphillipsandyavaughniewilkins.com, designed to expose the intimate details of a dead affair is indefensible. Setting out to publically humiliate Phillips is revenge, pure and simple. Revenge is unethical. Always. Continue reading →

“The Ethicist” Jumps the Rails!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

An ethical dilemma is a situation that requires us to choose between an ethical course and one that fulfills a non-ethical want or need, like getting a promotion, winning the love of our soul-mate, or improving our financial status. Choosing the ethical option often has negative consequences, but it is still the ethical option. Thus it is more than a little disheartening to read the advice columnist who calls himself “The Ethicist” supporting the unethical option—the one that rejects an ethical value in favor of self-interest. Continue reading →

A Brief Note on Leadership Ethics, for Sen. Kirk and Others

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Attempting to explain Martha Coakley’s difficulties convincing a Democratic populace in Massachusetts that it should elect a Democratic U.S. Senator, the current place-holder in the seat she is running for, Sen. Paul Kirk, said this: “It comes from the fact that Obama as president has had to deal with all these major crises he inherited: the banks, fiscal stimulus…”

You should not have to be a Republican or an Obama opponent to see the ethics fouls in that statement, which echoes what has been, sadly, something of a default position of the Administration whenever things go sour. Continue reading →

Obamacare Ethics: Prof. Gruber’s Conflict and Democratic Deceit

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Professor John Gruber, meet Armstrong Williams. Obama Democrats, meet the Bush Republicans. The names and faces may change, but the unethical tricks remain the same. 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 →

On Frozen Tongues and the No-Accountability Culture

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

A Siro, Oklahoma school bus driver, who is also a teacher, leaves a fifth-grade student stuck by the side of the road with her tongue frozen fast to a metal pole. The bus driver tells the girl that she doesn’t have time to help her, and drives away, forcing the girl to free herself by slowly chewing her way off the pole. The school discusses the situation with the driver and others who are charged with transporting the children, and declares the problem solved. The bus driver, the school says, will continue in both her duties.

Enough.

It is time for everyone to resist the increasing cultural pressure to create an accountability-free society. 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 →

Mark McGwire’s Steroid Confession, Part 1

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Former slugging first baseman Mark McGwire finally admitted yesterday that he indeed was a steroid-user while playing.  Telling the truth, even, as in McGwire’s case, when it is done too late and in a self-serving manner, is a good thing.  Nevertheless, his admission should have no bearing at all on the judgment of him as unworthy of  post-career honors. McGwire cheated, and his use of steroids damaged his fellow players and the game.  Nothing he said changes any of that. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Voluntary Mortgage Default

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Friend and reader Loren Platzman alerted me to the article, “Walk Away From Your Mortgage!” in the Sunday Times Magazine ( the magazine was, in fact, sitting unopened by my desk at the time. Some days, I just know that reading Randy Cohen’s “The Ethicist” column is going to ruin my weekend.) The thrust of the article, an installment in the “The Way We Live Now” series, is that American cultural tradition has reinforced the belief that there is something unethical and shameful about voluntarily letting the bank foreclose on a property when falling property values have placed the mortgage “under water,” meaning that the home is worth less than the amount still owed on it. Continue reading →