Daily Life

The Embarrassed Management Apologizes

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I just cleaned up about seven typos in the Randy Cohen post, which was up on the site including them for most of the day.

I apologize profusely for the sloppiness. I am the world’s worst proof-reader, and when I am rushing to get a post finished under a deadline, I am even worse than that. Nonetheless, this is no excuse, and readers who are kind enough to come here shouldn’t have to endure extra or missing words and illiterate spellings, most of which, by the way, is  because I can’t type, though my rotten spelling doesn’t help any.

I am so grateful to those of you who continue to flag the more egregious typos for me. Finding out that an article has been hanging out there with these errors is exactly like learning that you’ve been smiling at people with a piece of spinach on your front teeth all day. So I mean it: it isn’t because I don’t care. I’m trying. Obviously I have to try harder.

And I was so proud of myself for not misspelling “Beuhrle”…

Gallup’s 2010 Ethics Poll: Little Trust Where We Need It Most

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

As it does periodically, Gallup has released the results of its surveys to determine what professions Americans regard as ethical, and which ones they don’t. Gallup notes that there has been very little change over the last two years; on its site, it compares the results to those of polls taken from 2004 to the present.

The professions that have positive ratings from the public are nurses, the military, pharmacists, grade school teachers, doctors, police, clergy, judges, and day care providers.

The rest are in the red, trust-wise, with TV and newspaper reporters coming in below auto mechanics and bankers, lawyers below them, business executives even below lawyers, and well below them, Congress, which comes in barely above car salesmen—and more people actually have a low opinion of Congress members than of car salesmen. Congress inches ahead because a larger number also think that members of Congress are ethical.

Probably federal workers… Continue reading →

Hitler’s Ethics, and Ethics Malpractice From A Health Activist

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I am sure “Ellen S.” is a sincere, caring, lovely person, but the Ethics Police need to put an electric monitor on her tongue that sets off a warning every time she tries to utter the word “ethics.” There are many divergent ethical systems and many legitimate ways of analyzing an ethical problem, but Ellen’s sincere, caring blog illustrate why so many people’s eye glaze over when ethics comes into a conversation, and worse, it shows why so many otherwise educated people let their conduct be governed by rationalizations. The latest post on Ellen S.’s blog for the WEGO Health website illustrates my point; I didn’t have the courage to read more, and you will see why.

The post is entitled “Was Hitler More Ethical Than You?” Continue reading →

Ethics and the CALM Critics

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, or CALM Act, is now on the way to President Obama’s desk. The law addresses a long-time irritation to TV viewers, who have been complaining about television commercials booming out at ear-splitting volume as soon as a moderately-loud program takes a break. The advertising trick, which has been around for a while, has become even more blatant in recent years with availability of new sound technology. Some televisions have been equipped with devices that supposedly even out sound variations, but they do not completely solve the problem. The new legislation directs the Federal Communications Commission to require advertisers, within a year, to adopt industry technology aimed at lowering the volume on televised sales pitches.

This is a classic example of law doing what law is supposed to do: step in when individuals or organizations refuse to respect ethical values and cultural norms in the pursuit of their own self-interest, and set penalties to inspire them to engage in fair conduct, since “doing the right thing” isn’t motivation enough. Continue reading →

On Civility

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Civility is a core ethical virtue but a tricky one, both to define and to maintain. Peter Wehner has written a superb (and short!) essay on the topic at the Commentary Magazine site, applying it especially to political discourse.

” We can possess civility while at the same time holding (and championing) deep moral and philosophical commitments, ” Wehner writes. Continue reading →

Irresponsible School, Cowardly Teacher, Betrayed Students: the Palm Beach Classroom Attack Incident

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Donald Charbonneau, a teacher at a Palm Beach, Florida middle school, watched as one of his students, a 13-year-old boy, Adrian Thompson, attacked classmate Joshua Poole, who was sitting at his desk. Thompson hit Poole several times, and threw him to the floor. Rather than intervening is the fight, Charbonneau left the room to get assistance. Poole says he now suffers from headaches and blurred vision from the prolonged attack, which was longer that it would have been had the teacher stopped the fight.

The school district released a statement explaining that the teacher was following a school policy dictating that staff can only intervene after undergoing “special training” on how to properly deal with such incidents.

Got it.

The policy is an irresponsible legal risk-reduction maneuver that places students at risk and turns teachers into spineless, equally irresponsible weenies. Continue reading →

An Ethical Observation and Plea Regarding the “Don’t Ask…” Debate

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Sen. John McCain thinks that there needs to be more study regarding whether gay Americans, including those who have already shown themselves to be exemplary soldiers, should be banned from service in the military once their sexual orientation is known. He, and others, don’t want to “rush the decision.” This is callous, inhumane, and wrong.

The public controversy over this atrocious and inhuman policy from the Clinton years has stained America’s principles based on nothing but bigotry and ignorance for over a decade, and now the endless slog to a cure is proving almost as bad as the disease. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Eugene Delgaudio, Homophobe

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Eugene Deguadio, a Loudoun County, Va. lawmaker, told his 100,00 followers in the conservative nonprofit Public Advocate of the United States that the airport feel-up pat-downs (of which Ethics Alarms readers know I am so fond) are really meant to complete a Transportation Security-assisted “homosexual agenda.” “That means the next TSA official that gives you an enhanced pat-down could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission,” he wrote to the group, which he leads in his spare time. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Asra Nomani

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Asra Q. Nomani is a Muslim. She is also is an American, an author, a women’s rights activist, and co-director of the Pearl Project. Today, in a column for the Daily Beast, she broke ranks with her religion and the absolutist foes of profiling as an anti-terrorist tool with a profoundly ethical act: she argued for new policies that may be against her own interests, but also may be in the best interest of her country and the public— because she believes it is the right thing to do.

The title of her essay: “Let’s Profile Muslims.”

Some excerpts… Continue reading →

When The Occupation Of A Criminal Makes The Offense Worse

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In Texas, a Roman Catholic priest named John Fala has been arrested on charges that he solicited a hit man to kill a teenager who had accused him of sexual abuse. He had negotiated a price of $5000 for the murder before he was arrested.

Who do we trust, America? Who can we trust?