The irony is that a less honest and courageous umpire would have made the correct call. Continue reading
Daily Life
“Google Tried to Kill Me!”
Personal injury lawyers, along with their close trial lawyer cousins, the medical malpractice and product liability lawyers, have an unjust reputation. The American tort system is the fairest in the world, and the work of trial lawyers saves lives while it is getting compensation and damages for people who have been injured by the careless, negligent, reckless or malicious acts of others.
Unfortunately, rare cases like that of Lauren Rosenberg overshadow all of this, which is just one of the reasons her lawsuit against Google is objectionable. When you walk down the middle of a highway and get hit by a car, you may have some justification for suing the driver of the car. But suing the website that suggested that you walk on the road? That’s the theory of Laura and her lawyer. According to PC World, Rosenberg was trying to get from 96 Daly Street, Park City, Utah, to 1710 Prospector Avenue, Park City, Utah, and looked up the walking directions on her Blackberry using Google Maps . Google suggested a half-mile walk down “Deer Valley Drive,” also known as “Utah State Route 224,” which should have been a clue. But Google-trusting Laura started walking down the middle of the highway, and sure enough, a car hit her. Her complaint says: Continue reading
Avocations, Conflicts of Interest, and Country Joe West
Some employers are troubled by the avocations and outside activities of employees, a concern that often deserves a defiant “none of your business” in response. However, sometimes the concern is justified, such as when the avocation adversely reflects on the individual’s reputation to the extent that it harms his or her ability to perform, or when the avocation actually interferes with the job, such as a when a recreational rugby player keeps missing work because of injuries. Another problem is when the avocation creates a conflict of interest in which conduct that may be good for the avocation undermines the job.
The latter is exemplified by Major League Umpire Joe West, who fancies himself a country music singer and songwriter when he isn’t calling balls and strikes. As nicely narrated on the blog “It’s About the Money,” West has long been the most flamboyant and combative of umps, as proven by the fact that a lot of people know his name. Umpires aren’t supposed to be stars, celebrities or personalities: if you notice a particular umpire, it is almost always because he has made a mistake. They are important, however. Their acuity of sight and judgment are called upon many times in every game, and can make a significant difference in scores, standings, championships and careers. Like judges, they have to be trusted, and their integrity above suspicion. “The Common Man,” who wrote the blog post, believes that West’s singing career, such as it is, creates a conflict of interest that undermines that trust, and worse, warps his judgment on the field. Continue reading
The Ethics of Giving Up on Ethics
Paul Daugherty, a sportswriter for the Cincinnati Enquirer,recently wrote a column expressing a theme I hear all too often regarding politics, government, education, and society generally. Motivated by the steroid allegations against yet another hero, Lance Armstrong, Daugherty penned his surrender to a culture that doesn’t seem to care about ethics. Daugherty wrote:
“Everyone wants sports to be equitable. We all desire the level field. No one wants sports to be as drugged up as Woodstock in 1969. But it is. We’ve fought the ethical fight. We’ve lost. It could be time to let it go.
Even the athletes who lose still win. Mark McGwire got his, Barry Bonds got his, Brian Cushing got his. If you wait enough, deny enough, then rationalize believably, you get yours. Disgrace fades. Only Olympic athletes wear the stink of doping longer than the average 5-year-old’s attention span. In one respect, it’s not unlike the fight against legalizing marijuana. It has lasted so long, and now seems so pointless, I can’t even remember what we’ve been arguing about. We’ve become numb to it….It’s only a little outrageous now to suggest that a professional athlete be allowed to use performance-enhancing substances to his (enlarged) heart’s content, as long as he’s doing it legally….So what’s the point?”
“What’s the point?” Continue reading
AshleyMadison Finds Its Perfect Symbol
Well, if you run an unethical website, I suppose the most ethical thing you can do, other than shutting it down, is to be transparent about what you are selling, and how wrong it is.
Thus I have to reluctantly tip my ethics cap to the pro-adultery website, AshleyMadison, for finding the perfect symbol. [You can read my earlier commentary on this particularly atrocious site here and here.] Yes, TMZ is reporting that Bombshell McGee, the Nazi-celebrating tattoo model who helped Jesse James wreck his marriage with actress Sandra Bullock just as the couple was adopting a child and while she was proclaiming her trust and love for him to the world, will be promoting AshleyMadison’s adultery services. If seeing Bombshell McGee promoting a service endears makes it attractive to you, AshleyMadison can’t lead you astray: you are too far gone already. Bombshell’s (can I call her “Shelley?”) enthusiasm for adulterous relationships has destroyed a family and devastated another woman who never did her any harm. This is truth in advertising at its best: an irredeemable unethical business, hiring an openly despicable spokeswoman.
Ethics Test for the Anti-Palin Crowd
If you have a friend or colleague who can’t stand Sarah Palin—and who doesn’t?—the Joe McGinniss story gives you an infallible was to gauge their ability to be fair and objective, as well as their ability to apply the Golden Rule. Palin and her family are victims of a bad neighbor and an unscrupulous, venal and predatory author. The fact that one doesn’t like certain victims of wrongdoing because of their political beliefs, their accents, or their talent for uttering simplistic sound-bites calculated to drive Democrats crazy shouldn’t obliterate one’s ability to determine right from wrong. Continue reading
Standards, the Salahis, Bluto, and Us
A sane culture discourages ethical misconduct by condemning and punishing it. The American culture, thanks to greed, intellectual rot and an irresponsible media, rewards unethical conduct by making it profitable. This isn’t a trivial matter.
Tareq and Michaele Salahi are about as despicable a pair as one can imagine, redeemed only by the fact that they haven’t caused any oil spills, aren’t abusing children and haven’t killed anyone. They are full-time grifters, and are diligently working to profit by exploiting America’s sick obsession with media celebrity. They crashed a White House dinner in November, costing several people their jobs, and launching multiple investigations that added to the tax-payers’ burden. None of that mattered to them, of course, because the irresponsible escapade advanced their idiotic, pathetic and selfish goal: joining the likes of Jose Canseco, Corey Feldman and Gary Busey on TV’s equivalent of belching, a reality show. Then, being completely shameless, they recently stalked a White House dinner again, getting themselves stopped by the Secret Service as they rode in a rented limousine, dressed in formal attire, with an “Inside Edition” camera crew in tow. This was just an “incredible coincidence,” they explained…wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Continue reading
Rebate Ethics
I hit the roof yesterday when I found out that we had missed the deadline to apply for the promised $100 rebate on my son’s fancy cell phone. To make myself feel better, I checked with Consumers Reports and some other sources: sure enough, the Marshalls are not alone. It is estimated that 40%-60% of all rebates go unclaimed, to the tune of 4 billion dollars. What a deal for retailers! They lure you to the store with low prices. When you get there, you discover that the price will only truly be low after you mail in a rebate request and get a check in return. But you’re in the store, and have made the emotional commitment to buy. Later, you may find out that the various hoops you have to jump through to get the rebate back are annoying and time-consuming, and easy to botch. If you are busy, you may put it aside—and ninety, sixty, thirty, or even just seven days later, the rebate offer expires.
Are rebates ethical, or are they a particularly insidious form of consumer fraud, using the well-document human characteristics of impulse buying, inattention to detail, short attention span and procrastination against consumers to make millions of dollars in money that was supposed to be discounted but never was? Continue reading
The Old Pro’s Betrayal, Baseball Style
It’s a dramatic scenario as old as Homer. The Young Hero (YH) lets his ego get in the way of his judgement, and the Old Pro (OP), now graying, diminished and wobbly, sets him straight with a cuff to the head, a sympathetic smile, and some tough love. Years later, the YH, now established and successful, credits the OP, now dead and perhaps forgotten, with making the difference in his life.
This isn’t just movie and novel stuff, as you know: it really happens. It may have happened to you. I know I’ve played both roles, and more than once.
In 2010, however, the plot is a little different. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Rand Paul
The demise of the Tea Party movement may well come when it actually has to put individual candidates before the electorate and the media to carry its message. At least, that is what the ascendancy of Rand Paul, now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky after his primary victory this week, portends. Paul, before his first week as the nominee is up, has managed to expose himself as unacceptably challenged by the task of reconciling the deceptively simplistic philosophy of libertarians with real world ethics. Specifically, he has declared that he does not support the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s requirement that private businesses serve all members of the public, irrespective of race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation. This position Rand haltingly clung to despite withering interviews on National Public Radio and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. You can see the latter, in two parts, here and here. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 