Citizenship

Sorry, Mr. Buell: It’s Not About Free Speech, It’s About “The Naked Teacher Principle”

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

The Naked Teacher Principle rides again!

Jerry Buell, a veteran high school teacher recently named his district’s ‘Teacher of the Year,” was suspended indefinitely by Lake County, Florida’s Mount Dora High School for posting an anti-gay marriage rant on his Facebook page.  In the post, prompted by New York’s decision to legalize gay marriage, Buell said that the news made him want to throw up, that gay marriage was “a cesspool,” and that homosexuality was a sin.

He is welcome to his opinion. He has an absolute right to it. However, he does not have a right to be allowed to teach students, several or many of whom may be gay, after voluntarily allowing it to become public knowledge that he is disgusted by gays and considers them sinful. The school is right to remove him from his teaching duties, and it will be right to tell him that he will not be permitted to teach in the school again. Continue reading →

The Folly and Threat of the Pew 13%

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

From the just-released Pew survey about American attitudes and practices regarding their mobile phones:

“Cell phones can help prevent unwanted personal interactions – 13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.”

For information and education of those 13% of cell phone owners, here is what I know about you because you engage in this practice:

  • You are rude.
  • You are disrespectful.
  • You are cowardly.
  • You are ignorant
  • You are a liar.

I am sure these same people will happily enter their opinions on blogs about what is and isn’t right about America, despite having avoided all but the most sanitized interaction with it—using pseudonyms to hide their identities, of course. They don’t want interaction, the mutual exchange of  opinions, or to have to deal with anyone who might shatter their ossified, unshakable view of the world with a different perspective. Continue reading →

The Warren Jeffs Sex Tapes and the Media’s Ethical Incoherence

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Warren Jeffs and his happy, happy wives---caught on tape!

Warren Jeffs, the Texas polygamist recently convicted of raping his child-wives, was sent to his richly-deserved prison sentence with the help of some horrific tape recordings of Jeffs proselytizing his young victims on their God-directed duty to satisfy his sexual needs, and more tapes that recorded his grunts and pants as he had sexual intercourse with them.

The Salt Lake Tribune requested and received copies of the tapes as well as other evidence in the trial. Then, according to an explanation in the paper, it editors had extensive discussions internally regarding the journalistic ethics of making the tapes generally available online. The paper’s decision:

“We opted to post only clips because we did not believe it would be ethical to make recordings of sexual assault, in action or imminent, easily available on the Web. Young girls can be heard in the tapes, and the jury’s decision was clear: These girls are a predator’s victims. In our role as journalists covering difficult stories, we vow to do our jobs while minimizing harm. In choosing not to provide these materials, we acted to minimize harm.

“What you will hear if you listen to the clips is Jeffs explaining and justifying his abuse of young girls in the name of religion. His “teaching” is helpful in understanding the case and the jury’s decision.”

This is hypocrisy of the highest order, and an abuse of a news organization’s function. Continue reading →

The Disgrace of the Health Care Reform Debacle, Brought Into Focus

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Nice image. Unfortunately, the open book is "Catch 22"

“Some prominent academics have argued that the individual mandate is a clearly constitutional exercise of the federal government’s taxing power. Some of these same academics have argued that opponents of the individual mandate’s constitutionality are well outside the legal mainstream. Yet as of today, there has not been a single federal court — indeed, perhaps not even a single federal judge — who has accepted the taxing power argument. Not a one. And yet a half-dozen federal judges have found the mandate to be unconstitutional. So which arguments are outside of the mainstream again?”

Thus did Jonathan Adler, Case Western law professor and Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation, chide the arrogant supporters of the health care reform act who dismissed as wackos and radicals critics who were alarmed at its intrusions onto personal freedom. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ rejection of the individual mandate, the provision requiring all adult citizens to buy private health insurance, is the most striking proof yet of the arrogant, unethical, dishonest, corrupt and incompetent manner in which the Democratic majority passed its version of health care reform. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day #3 on “Ethics Dunces: The Senate and House Leadership”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Come back, Ross! We need your charts!

The third Comment of the Day on this “Comment of the Day Friday” is an epic from Michael, expanding on the theme of my original post.

“I hate the fact that no one is talking facts, only ideology. In such an atmosphere, these selections make sense. The S&P statement said our downgrade was because we failed to tacked long-term indebtedness especially the main drivers of long-term debt: Medicare and SS, but no one really wants to deal with that. To talk facts, you really need some tables, figures, and analysis. I’m not just talking about politicians, here. Isn’t this the reason we tolerate the media? Aren’t they supposed to keep us informed of about things like this so we can then get outraged by such a stupid selection of people to ‘fix’ our problem.

“Why can’t we find a news outlet that will break things down like this?” Continue reading →

Some Post Iowa Debate Ethics Awards

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Other than the fact that both would look crazy on the cover of Newsweek, how is Humpty Dumpty like Michele Bachman?

The GOP pre-Iowa straw poll presidential debate last night earned a few ethics awards, with many more to come as we get to know these pretenders better:

Journalistic Integrity Award: Chris Wallace, Fox news anchor and questioner.

Wallace continues to bring legitimate and fair journalistic practices to his job, and gets accused of being biased anyway. Or, as in this case, (and as when he shocked Michele Bachmann by asking her directly what everyone was implying, “Are you a flake?”), conservatives who expect softballs from Fox react with indignation that an assumed ally is asking a tough question. Wallace asked Newt Gingrich about his flailing campaign organization, and Gingrich angrily called it a “gotcha” question. That’s not a “gotcha,” Newt, and you know it. When most of a candidate’s  campaign staff, those who know him  best, have indicated that they don’t think he has a chance—or perhaps shouldn’t have a chance—by jumping ship, it is fair and responsible to ask a candidate to explain. Continue reading →

Web Ethics Complaint File: Rotten Etiquette in “Etiquette Hell”

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

The topic: rude behavior in public dining

There is nothing quite as exquisitely frustrating as having one’s commentary misrepresented elsewhere by a sloppy blogger, and then watching the nasty comments pile up by posters who never bother to read the original post. That is what is happening to Ethics Alarms, and thus me, over at an otherwise virtuous site called Etiquette Hell.

The site, or blog, or forum, or whatever the hell it is commented on the Starbucks post, with the inept headline: “Hogging all the tables in a crowded establishment.” That’s not what the post was about. That is a misrepresentation. The post was specifically about coffee shops that provide free wi-fi, and how customers abuse the privilege and benefit by camping out with their laptops for unreasonable amounts of time,  forcing patrons who need to use the tables for the primary purpose they exist to provide—allowing someone to eat and drink comfortably—to go elsewhere, or to stand. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The Barefoot Contessa and the Compassion Bullies”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

He's young, sick, and poor. His mother must be right, then.

Gary, an occasional commenter, grabs the Comment of the Day with a provocative one on a post from quite a while back. To refresh your memory, a sick child named Enzo Pereda asked the Make-A-Wish Foundation to get him a one-on-one cooking experience with “The Barefoot Contessa,” Ina Garten. Garten refused, and the boy’s mother led an online shaming exercise, condemning Garten, encouraging boycotts of her Food Channel show, and launching other bloggers and media on an anti-Ina rampage. Ethics Alarms’ verdict was that the boy’s mother was engaged in compassion bullying, demanding that this cable celebrity do her child’s bidding, alter her own schedule and priorities, and grant her son’s arbitrary “wish” because he happened to be ill. Garten had no obligation whatsoever to do what someone, or even everyone, might consider a kind act, and the one who was acting unethically was Enzo’s mother.

Gary’s comment goes to the heart of what Ethics Alarms is all about. Here is his Comment of the Day on “The Barefoot Contessa and the Compassion Bullies.”  I’ll have some additional comments at the end: Continue reading →

The Starbucks Principles

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Hey you squatters! I'm coming over!

The First Starbucks Principle: If you create a free and open public benefit, the use of which is contingent on mutually understood conditions of fairness and reasonableness, eventually the utility of the benefit will be destroyed by individuals who refuse to be either fair or reasonable.

The Second Starbucks Principle: Once this occurs, there will necessarily  be rules and enforcement, conflict leading to consensus and a new social norm, or the elimination of the benefit.

Starbucks is in the midst of the First Starbucks Principle, but the Second is on the way. The nice, absurdly expensive coffee shops that created a culture where coffee-lovers could drink their lattes at leisure while working at their laptops or perusing  books and newspapers, are being choked to death by arrogant and cheapskate squatters who stake out the tables and remain for hours on end, often driving out customers who just want to sit down briefly and sip.

I had read about Starbucks’ New York City shops covering up outlets at the store, limiting the squatters to the battery storage limits of their laptops, a pretty mild reform. Then, last week, I saw the problem up close: a companion and I purchased coffee at a Starbucks clone, Caribou Coffee, and found that every table was occupied by one squatter with a laptop. Out of eight tables, only one had a cup or food of any kind. We had to go outside and find a bench; I guarantee that Caribou lost some business, because I would have purchased another drink. Continue reading →

American Lessons from the English Riots

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I am going to refrain from joining the ranks of amateur psychologists trying to identify the “root cause” of the English riots. People of any age or economic status who riot are, it is fair to say, assholes, like lesser social miscreants such as vandals, computer virus inventors, Leroy Fick and Pastor Terry Jones. If I were convinced that these riots were in response to necessary government cutbacks in social programs, I would have something arguably useful to say, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

There is no question, however, that in allowing the riots to go on so long and harm so many citizens, businesses and homes, the British government has failed one of its most basic duties. Great Britain has been the anti-gun zealot’s Nirvana for a long time: not only can’t citizens own guns for their personal protection, neither can the police. That can work, if the culture is reliably non-violent, and if social and community institutions do a good job making sure that the culture of non-violence is strong, self-reenforced, and deep.

Well, it isn’t, is it?

Continue reading →