Education

The Fireman, the Cheater, and Media Muddling

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Come on, Robert! It's less embarrssing than Joey's gonorrrhea poster!

One of the reasons I launched The Ethics Scoreboard and later Ethics Alarms was that I felt  the media did not recognize ethics stories and failed to cover them. Well, more ethics stories are finding their way into the news, but true to the warning “Be careful what you wish for,” the reports usually botch them, and get the ethics lessons wrong. The saga of Enzo and the “Barefoot Contessa” was a particularly nauseating example, but there have been others recently. For example… Continue reading →

The Strange and Telling Case of the Illiterate Novelist

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

True, it was a lousy book, but at least the sentences were grammatical.

I have noticed of late a disturbing trend, the literary equivalent of those who play their car radios and sound systems at ear-splitting volume with the windows down, or youths who converse in shouts in public places. The trend is proliferation of the proud and unapologetic illiterates,  authors of e-mails, blog posts or even published material who regard the basics of punctuation, grammar, spelling and rhetoric as an annoying inconvenience, and who not only pay little heed to these archaic matters, but also display no regret about the barely readable products that result.

At this point, I am less concerned with why so many of those who communicate in writing are so shamelessly sloppy, and more interested in what the trend signifies for our society. Perhaps some insight can be gained by examining a recent exchange between a grammar and spelling-challenged novelist and a reviewer of her work on a book review blog called “Books and Pals.” Continue reading →

The Message or the Messenger: The Mysterious Foundation For A Better Life

/ Jack Marshall / 55 Comments

Does it matter who's behind the curtain?

The Foundation for a Better Life sponsors those slick TV spots promoting ethical values like kindness, sportsmanship, charity, and sacrifice. I have long wondered where they came from, and belatedly visited the organization’s website, Values.com, where I spent quite a while clicking through their extensive links to descriptions of core ethical values and inspiring stories. Not bad. The only deficiency I could see with the site was the lack of any explanation regarding how the Foundation was funded, who ran it and who was responsible for it. The site describes itself thusly:

“The Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, started in 2000. Our sole objective is to promote positive values, using print and broadcast media.

We want the stories we share about the positive actions and values of others to serve as inspiration for someone to do one thing a little better, and then pass on that inspiration. A few individuals living values-based lives will collectively make the world a better place.

The Foundation does not have a political or religious agenda. Our values are selected with the hope that most individuals would find these values universal, encouraging, and inspiring. The Foundation acknowledges that each person has a unique lens through which he or she views the world. Naturally there are religious, nonreligious, political, and cultural views that give meaning to our lives. Our objective is to provide a wide spectrum of values without any intended agenda or slant and provide an uplifting message around each one.”

And this appears to be exactly what the Foundation does. Continue reading →

Sunday Ethics Blast: An Overly-helpful Teacher, A Hands-on Youth Counselor, A Poverty Program Slacker and a Redeemed Ethicist

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Here are some quick links and observations to get your ethical juices going this Sunday… Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: Renew America

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Sadly, this young man had a promising future...and then he started reading Bryan Fischer.

Renew America, an extreme conservative political blog, wins this month’s unethical website distinction by virtue of running a jaw-dropping article by Bryan Fischer, one of the blog’s founders. This is a tough one, because I would normally focus my attention on Fischer himself, whose views are at best absurd and at worst insane. But he clearly believes them, so I cannot fairly say he is lying. The website, however, assuming there are others involved in its management other than Fischer, is recklessly misinforming its presumably ignorant and gullible readers, since no one who isn’t reckless and gullible could possibly finish reading a piece including historical and legal fantasy like this: Continue reading →

Lesson of the Asian-Bashing UCLA Video: Shunning and Intolerance Work. Good.

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Alexandra Wallace...cultural critic, YouTube star, pariah, GONE

Alexandra Wallace, the UCLA student who created an obnoxious and offensive video stereotyping her Asian colleagues as gibberish-spouting boors,  announced that she was leaving the school as a result of “being ostracized” by “an entire community.”  Yes, I’d say that was the idea, and it is how cultures enforce its values. And it works.

Wallace picked the day of the Japanese tsunami to post her anti-Asian rant on YouTube, where it promptly went viral. It also made her an instant pariah on her campus, where over a third of all students are of Asian heritage, and the rest of them, unlike Alexandra, have at least a vague concept of mutual respect and decorum.

You can read a complete transcript of the three-minute diatribe here, but this shortened version gives a sense of what infuriated Asians, UCLA, and just about everyone else: Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Florida Legislator Kathleen Passidomo

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yup, the Temple girl was asking for it...

While pushing for a bill mandating a dress code for schools, Florida’s GOP legislator Kathleen Passidomo decided to bolster her argument by linking it the horrendous Texas case in which an eleven-year-old girl was raped by 18 men. She said:

“There was an article about an 11-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute. And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students.”

This woman is too dim-witted to make sandwiches. much less laws.

I don’t care if the 11-year old girl’s parents dressed her  like Christina Aguilara on a particularly slutty day. I don’t care if she looked like Jon Benet Ramsey on estrogen supplements. I don’t care if she looked 15, 17, 22, 31, or 64; I don’t care if she was buck naked and singing “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No.” None of that would create any reason, excuse, motivation or justification for even one man to rape her, much less 18.

Blaming rape on how women dress is an insult to men and a denigration of the rights of women. Blaming a rape on how a little girl dresses, however, is a clear sign of dangerous warped and flawed logic, values, compassion and comprehension.

Comments of the Day: “Bully Ethics…”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I was in New York all day, and returned to find a plethora of excellent comments on the post, “Bully Ethics: Lessons from Casey the Punisher.” Two of the finest follow, and they go well together: Michael on the dilemma facing the bullied child, and Lianne on her family’s solution.

First, Michael:

“Bullies only understand violence. If you are being bullied, how can you stop it? Continue reading →

Bully Ethics: Lessons From “Casey the Punisher”

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

 

Go get him, Ralphie!

The YouTube video of the tormented 16-year-old Australian student who provides a surprise ending to a 12-year-old bully’s fun at his expense by suddenly slamming the younger boy to the ground—breaking the bully’s ankle in the process— has set off an international debate that could help clarify some important ethical dilemmas regarding bullying, or muddle them further.

 

The video shows a heavy teen, one who classmates say has been bullied by other children for years, enduring repeated punches by a smaller student as his humiliation is being videoed for posterity. Then, emulating Ralphie’s sudden rage against the evil Scut Farkus in one of “A Christmas Story’s” iconic scenes, he suddenly fights back…and how. Continue reading →

The SATs: Flat Learning Curve=Unfair Questions

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The secret to acing your SATs? Know your Kardashians!

After all the anger, debate and controversy in the Sixties over affirmative action and the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, with the case finally being made to the public’s satisfaction that including test questions  based on cultural references likely to be unfamiliar to African-Americans or lower-income students (such as, famously, questions about yachting) negatively affected their test scores, wouldn’t you think that it would have been thoroughly understood by the people who make up the SAT scores that questions with a cultural bias were inherently unfair and incompetent questions?

Here is the prompt for the essay question in the SAT test given to high school students across the country last week : Continue reading →