Character

“Keeping It Real” When “Real” Means “Selfish, Unprofessional Jerk”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

I tried to find a straight video of  KWWL-TV’s Mark Woodley, its sports reporter, modeling unethical workplace conduct and a complete lack of professionalism in his emergency stint this week as a weather reporter. I couldn’t: every available clip compilation is presented like the CNN version above. Isn’t this cute and hilarious?

It isn’t either.  I can see that CNN’s talking heads might thinks so, since that network allows unprofessional conduct by the ‘talent” regularly, like Don Lemon getting bombed on the New Year Eve. Unless Woodley was told to be whiny prima donna as a publicity stunt and he might have been, given the state of journalism, broadcast and otherwise, in 2022, his attitude and ostentatious bitching should have guaranteed a suspension or worse.

When one is called upon by one’s employer or leader to fill in, do extra duties, help get through a crisis or emergency, or to be a team player and do what the team needs to have done, the  ethical and professional response is to do the best possible job you can with good cheer and without complaint. Woodley, who did the opposite, helped metastasize “quiet quitting” and many other forms of workplace societal rot.

This is how society becomes miserable in a Nation of Assholes. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Colorado Avalanche Defenseman Cale Makar

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I bet this doesn’t become a trend.

During the Colorado Avalanche–New York Islanders game last night in the first period, Avalanche star defenseman Cale Makar had the puck behind his team’s net while being pursued by Islanders forward Mathew Barzal. Makar fell, and looked like that Barzal tripped Makar, so a penalty was called, which would give Colorado a one-player  advantage. But when the referee blew his whistle, Makar  waved at him to indicate it wasn’t a penalty after all.  After briefly conferring the referees retracted the penalty.

This literally never happens in hockey, nor basketball, nor pro football, not Major League Baseball. A player telling a referee or umpire that a call benefiting his team was wrong? That’s not how the professional sports roll. The assumption is that eventually the bad calls even out. If you don’t accept gifts, your team will suffer in the long run.

Barzal’s reaction:  “I honestly didn’t even know he waved it off until I saw it after. I thought the ref just made the call but, yeah, good sportsmanship on his part, not taking that. I don’t know if I would have done the same, to be honest with you.” Continue reading →

Nah, The Democrats Would Never Cheat To Hold On To Power! Whatever Would Make Anyone Think That?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I saw the photoshopped Joe Biden photo that “allegedly” had been sent out by “Team Biden” last night, and decided that I couldn’t rely on the conservative source, since I would not put it past “Team GOP” to photoshop a picture and then claim Democrats were responsible. This is what we’ve come to—we literally cannot trust any source, any account, any claim, and neither Right nor Left nor their media mouthpieces are sufficiently trustworthy, fair, honest or decent that you, I or anyone can be sure of the facts about virtually anything.

(Fuck.)

However, I traced down the source of the fake. Here’s the whole photo, in a tweet from Democratic strategist and former party chair Chris Jackson….

Continue reading →

Unethical Tweet(s) Of The Month And Ethics Dunce, Res Ipsa Loquitur Division: Jessica Valenti

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

What more needs to be said about a) a woman who would tweet this ethically-deranged nonsense, and b) a society in which substantial numbers of people think she’s worth paying attention to? Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Neil Diamond

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond has the reputation of being a really nice, down-to-earth guy, and there have been many episodes in his career demonstrating that. He’s over 80 now, and years ago announced that his singing days were over because, like fellow retired singer Linda Ronstadt, he is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, which makes controlling one’s vocal chords difficult. Nonetheless, when he has been feeling well and the occasion is right, Diamond has warbled, a bit wobbly, despite his malady, as when he sang briefly at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored, and last summer at Fenway Park, where “Sweet Caroline” is played during every Red Sox game as a crowd sing-along, when he made a surprise appearance and joined the crowd.

Over the weekend, the new Broadway jukebox musical “A Beautiful Noise” opened on Broadway. Diamond was guest of honor naturally, and, as you can see in the video, got up in his box and sang “Sweet Caroline” as the audience went nuts. Sure, Diamond was assured of a positive response no matter how he sounded. but he is in a distinct minority among famous performers, most of whom are sufficiently vain (or perfectionists) to refuse to perform, or in some cases, even appear in public, once their talents have decayed to a point they deem unacceptable. The rare ones like Diamond, however, are willing to be a shadow of their former selves to give an audience a thrill they will never forget.

And that’s what he did—a gift, to them, to Broadway, even to me.

Bravo.

NOOOOOO! “The Ethicist” Just Endorsed The Golden Rationalization As Justification For Deception.

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

It isn’t quite head-exploding, because the New York Times “The Ethicist” column has seen its columnist—there have been five of them, I think—promote unethical conduct all too frequently over the years. But the current ethics advice maven, Kwame Anthony Appiah, is a real ethicist, unlike the others, and I expect better of him. Because of his credentials and assumed authority, his unethical advice this week is particularly damaging. And to clarify my statement I quote one of many memorable exchanges during the testimony of Miss Mona Lisa Vitto (Marissa Tomei) in the climax of “My Cousin Vinny”:

D.A. Jim Trotter (Lane Smith): Objection, Your Honor! Can we clarify to the court whether the witness is stating opinion or fact?

Judge Chamberlain Haller (Fred Gwynne) : [to Lisa] This is your opinion?

Mona Lisa Vito: It’s a fact.

The inquirer asked whether it was unethical for him to list a fake publisher on the title page of his self-published book that he created on Amazon, apparently a common practice that Amazon permits. He also asked whether it would be unethical to tell a bookstore owner who agreed to sell the book on consignment that the book was published by his made-up book company.

“The Ethicst” answers the first query this way:

Continue reading →

Worst of Ethics Award 2022: Most Unethical Quote Of The Year

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

There were more unethical quotes this year than I recall reading and hearing in a long time, and that’s just the ones Ethics Alarms chose to highlight. Winners in the category included The New York Times (twice) and the Washington Post, CNN’s finally dismissed hack Chris Cuomo, Joy Behar (I just picked one; there were about a hundred or so), Georgetown Law Center’s Dean, William Trainor, Donald Trump (twice!), Chris’s corrupt and disgraced brother, former NY governor Andrew Cuomo, Sen. Lindsay Graham, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Dr. Fauci, Nusrat Jahan Choudhury, a federal court nominee who “explained” in her confirmation hearing that she lied in an address to Princeton students to “make a rhetorical point”; Joe Biden (again, for one of about a hundred 2022 quotes that would qualify); Kamala Harris of course, Nancy Pelosi, Rep Eric Swalwell, Barack Obama, Golden State Warriors owner Chamath Palihapitiya, CNN intelligence analyst Robert Baer, and Van Jones (today!), Ann Hathaway, Media Matters chief Angelo Carusone, Herschel Walker (again, take your pick), AOC (ditto), NY Governor Kathy Hochul, Liz Cheney, GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, GOP Rep. Mary Miller, Democratic Senator Chris Coons, Kim Sill, founder of the Shelter Hope Pet Shop, and Stacey Abrams.

Many of these could have easily been winners in a more temperate year, but President Biden lapped them all with his September, televised “Soul of the Nation” speech that was “wildly unethical…irresponsible, disrespectful, unfair, and un-American, as well as hypocritical, indeed a betrayal, from a leader who promised on his Inauguration Day, “We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.”

Biden gave a fascist speech to accuse his political opponents of being fascists

No American President has ever delivered such a despicable addess. It debased his office, and damaged the Republic. But, to be fair, it may have influenced enough fools to keep Democrats from the mid-term wipe-out they deserved. So there’s that.

Most Unethical Quote of the Year: President Joe Biden

No contest.

Empathy And Compassion Are Ethical Values But This Idiot Deserves Neither

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

…unless, of course, we should have compassion and empathy for unapologetic, self-destructive idiots like Anaya Peterson.

Peterson is a mother of five and—KABOOM!—a law student, but nonetheless thought it would be a good idea to get her eyes tattooed. After all, Australian model Amber Luke tattooed her eyes a vivid blue and only went blind for three weeks! That was good enough for Peterson, whose seven-year-old daughter cautioned her that the procedure was too risky. “What if you go blind?” the kid asked? Oh pshaw, Mom answered; adults know best.

Now it looks as if Mother may go blind after all. “I don’t have 20/20 vision anymore. From a distance, I can’t see features on faces,” Peterson told the media. “If I didn’t have my eyeballs tattooed, I wouldn’t be having this problem. Even today I woke up with more floaters in my eyes. And that is dangerous.” Continue reading →

The Zugzwang Train In Georgia

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

As I write this, I have no idea who will win Georgia’s run-off for the U.S. Senate. Ethically, it doesn’t matter: the prospect of either result—Sen. Warnock’s re-election, or a victory for Republican Hershel Walker—is horrible. This is an even worse ethics zugszwang election than Hillary vs. Trump in 2016, except that the Presidency is obviously more important than the Senate, and an incompetent, dishonest, untrustworthy occupant can do far more damage there.

Ethics Alarms has discussed the awful choice offered Georgians many times over the past few months, mostly focusing on Walker, who is the most unqualified candidate for the U.S. Senate offered by a major party in my lifetime, and possibly ever. Warnock, however, is only slightly better, and he’s representing the political party that is slightly more unethical and incompetent than Walker’s party. Walker’s scandals are marginally more numerous and worse; his lies are more outrageous, his hypocrisy more stunning. But then Warnock says stuff like his ridiculous explanation (on MSNBC, naturally, with Joy Reid, of course) of why he is a radical abortion supporter:

“I have been studying the Scriptures my whole life. I’m committed to the faith. And, as a pastor, I have a profound reverence for life. And, as a pastor and a person of faith, I have a deep respect for choice.  If we care about life, black women are dying three to four times the rate of white women in childbirth, as a result of childbirth. And so, if you care about life, we ought to find a way and address the obvious bias in our health care system….I think it’s exactly what Jesus would do,”

Warnock isn’t just unfit to be in the Senate, he’s unfit to be in the clergy.

Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Officials Of The Month: Rep. Mario Diaz-Belart (R-Fla.) And Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Also: two pathetic weenies.

Both GOP House members now are recanting their votes the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the House with 47 Republicans voting with the unanimous Democratic throng. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, says his original vote was the result of “confusion” and because Speaker Nancy Pelosi “rushed” the bill through to the floor vote. Rep. Mario Diaz-Belart said yesterday,

“My record shows that I am a long-standing advocate against discrimination of all types. I, however, cannot support any effort that undermines religious liberties by failing to provide legitimate safeguards for faith-based organizations that object based on their deeply-held religious beliefs.”

What really happened is that conservatives on social media and in the punditry scorched the Republicans who voted for the measure, which is necessary, obvious, benign and a gift to the GOP if was capable of thinking straight, so now these two cowards are backing down and claiming that they didn’t mean it.

Look, the job of a House member is this simple: read a bill and decide if you support it or not. I can respect someone who votes for a bill and someone who votes against it, but doing what these two are doing is the equivalent of announcing, “I can’t do my job!”

Congress does not need incompetents, and it does not need weenies. It really doesn’t need incompetent weenies.