Principal Jazmine Santiago heads PS 269 in Flatbush, New York, a troubled elementary school where last year only 16 percent of the students passed state English exams and only 12 percent passed math. Yet she used scarce school funds to install her own private gym on the third floor, complete with a bench press, pull-up bar, treadmill, elliptical machine and thigh exerciser.
Questioned about the gym by her staff, Santiago claimed she allowed older students to use the equipment. That would be the K through 5 school’s eleven-year-olds, most of whom are under five feet tall. The adult-sized exercise gear in the principal’s work-out palace would be almost impossible, not to mention dangerous, for children to use.
Santiago has had her job for four years and now makes $124,319 annually. Jonathan Turley notes that since the gym is technically a school improvement and not personal enrichment, she has avoided criminal liability. Well, that’s nice. She is still spectacularly unethical: selfish, irresponsible, incompetent, unfair, wasteful, untrustworthy.
State Department of Education spokesman Harry Hartfield said the matter of the principal and her private gym will be investigated. It shouldn’t take long: the photo above should tell them everything they need to know.
“Effective Spring 2015, the (graduate center’s) policy is to eliminate the use of gendered salutations and references in correspondence to students, prospective students, and third parties,” Louise Lennihan, interim provost, states to employees in a recent memo. “Accordingly, Mr. and Ms. should be omitted from salutations.” Lennihan instructs staffers to interpret the new policy “as broadly as possible,” that it applies to “all types of correspondence, such as: all parts of any letter including address and salutation, mailing labels, bills or invoices, and any other forms or reports,” states the memo, a copy of which was provided to The College Fix by school spokeswoman Tanya Domi. Rather than using “Mr.” or “Ms.,” staff are instructed to refer to students by his or her full name. The policy will “ensure a respectful, welcoming, and gender-inclusive learning environment … [and] accommodate properly the diverse population of current and prospective students,” Lennihan states in the memo.
Now, I almost never use these salutations any more. “Mr.” has always seemed pompous to me, and now it reminds me of the New York Times with its tradition of calling the President “Mr. Obama.” (Over the weekend, the Times garnered guffaws for calling Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker “Mr. Scott” throughout an op-ed. Nice editing there). “Miss” seems condescending, “Mrs.” is a minefield, and “Ms.” sounds ugly while being both dated and unwelcome from some women. (Once I called a women “Ms.” and she barked at me, “Do I look like a dyke to you???”) And I hate being called Mister myself. All of the is irrelevant, It is not any university’s business to enact speech codes, banned words, or other undemocratic and ideologically driven attempts at censorship and speech control. Speech control is thought control, and thought control is indoctrination. Continue reading →
To go into the “Gallery of Republicans Who Say Offensive Things About Rape Making The Whole Party Look Stupid.” The sad part is, the gallery is filling up…
I just wrote the quote in the title a couple hours ago, and now this.
Rep. Brian Kurcaba of the West Virginia House of Delegates was involved in the body’s debate over a proposed bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and that does not allow an exception in cases of rape. He said:
“For somebody to take advantage of somebody else in such a horrible and terrifying and brutal way is absolutely disgusting. But what is beautiful is the child that could come as a production of this.”
I’m sorry to be uncivil and blunt, but he’s an idiot, the comment is signature significance of a near-clinical deficit of compassion and common sense, and any man this dull should not be allowed within 50 yards of a legislature. Continue reading →
“Uh, do you think we should say something to Brian?”
Yesterday Brian Williams announced that he was removing himself temporarily as anchor of the NBC nightly news broadcast, as NBC revealed that it was conducting an independent investigation, which certainly sounds like eyewash to me (and others.) The ethics issue, however, has expanded rapidly to the point where Williams’ fate—and at this point, I think he’s doomed—is almost incidental to the larger broadcast and news media ethics issues involved.
Maureen Dowd and others have revealed that NBC executives had been well aware that Williams was, to put it kindly in Dowd’s terms, “inflating his resume” and yet declined to stop it. In other words…
…they were aware he was lying to the public, which means that
…they were aware that he lies in public, which meant that
…their face, voice, anchor and head of their news division was a liar, indeed perhaps even a pathological liar, meaning that
…Williams was unquestionably untrustworthy, and
…a constant risk to misinform the audience, and
…they still didn’t remove him because his ratings were good and he was making money for the company.
When did the writers of advertising copy decide that catch phrases devised to sound like vulgar slang are appealing devices to sell services or merchandise? If you are so devoid of wit and civility that you find Verizon’s new campaign hilarious, Sponge Bob is over your head. Oscar Wilde this isn’t. What it is is one more gratuitous coarsening feature of the public square and common discourse. Now we are teaching children that it’s cool to speak rudely, as long as you pretend that you aren’t intending to. Look! The grown-ups are doing it!
It’s an insult. It’s an insult to the target audience that is supposed to clap like seals at a play on words that would have rejected by the most desperate night club comedian 20 years ago. It’s an insult to the craft of marketing, to which this is what farting on key is to singing. Most of all, it’s an insult to society, the culture, and the United States of America. No wonder Muslims think our way of life is disgusting. It is.
I couldn’t bring myself to post on K-Mart’s abysmal “ship my pants” ad in 2013; I thought it was an aberration. OK, I hoped it was an aberration. Now comes Verizon to sell its FIOS by having actors complain that their internet is half-fast. Half-fast, get it? GET IT???
I’m not offended by the phrase—heck, I scream things ten times as ugly at my computer every day. No, I’m offended that there not only is no respect for others in public discourse, the entire idea that there should be is considered old-fashioned. This began with badly raised kids spouting obscenities in movie theaters, then began metastasizing as TV comedians, Vice-Presidents, Oscar-winning actresses, rock stars and others lacked the inhibitions to keep them from whispering, speaking or shouting obscenities into open mics, and now has gone mainstream. Fortune 500 companies run by Harvard Business School grads believe that promoting their business with coded vulgarity is cute and responsible. Well, it isn’t. It just makes the world we live in a little uglier, and it’s more than ugly enough.
It’s so discouraging. What chance has Ethics Alarms to help people learn the art of sound ethical analysis and problem-solving when the web is teeming with prolific ethics dunces like Matt Wilstein?
On Mediaite, which is supposed to specialize in news media commentary, analysis and criticism, staff writer Wilstein has delivered an archetype of atrocious ethics reasoning, packaged as a rationalization-fest to save Brian Williams’ imperiled job. It’s called Why NBC Shouldn’t Even Think About Firing Brian Williams, and the title is the most ethical thing about it. After all, it fairly and openly informs anyone tempted to read this trash that the writer is addled. It’s bad enough to argue that NBC News shouldn’t fire the man who is its public face after he proves that he cannot be trusted to convey facts accurately, but to argue that a network shouldn’t even consider ridding itself of such a public relations and professional disaster requires a naive, cynical and illogical view of business, the media (Wilstein’s field!) ethics and life. Anyone reading such a headline is duly warned not only not to read what follows, but to avoid any website that would allow such an author to pollute its pages and its readers’ minds.
Here are Wilstein’s reasons NBC should not fire Williams, and I’m not making this up:
2. He’s funny. That’s right: Viewers won’t care if they can’t believe the head of your news division and anchorman, as long as he’s amusing.
3. “Besides his “Slow Jam the News” segments and edited rap songs on Jimmy Fallon’s show, Williams has also leant his talents to other NBC properties by hosting Saturday Night Live and appearing on 30 Rock.” Translation: Versatility is what you look for in a journalist, not integrity or competence at reporting.
4. NBC has had to replace other key personnel lately, like David Gregory. In other words, convenience trumps trust. Or perhaps Wilstein is making the dubious argument that you shouldn’t replace your car’s defective engine right after you re-lined the brakes. It’s hard to tell.
5. Lots of people want to fire Williams, but lots of people want to fire most news anchors. Wilstein really writes this. He is arguing that 70% of his own website’s readers wanting to fire Williams for serious professional misconduct is meaningless because so many people want to fire other anchors for other reasons.
6. Maintaining a network’s integrity alone is not sufficient reason to fire your news anchor. Well, I guess in today’s journalistic environment, where integrity means nothing, he has a point.
I was aware of the flimsiness of No More, the NFL’s designated mouth piece to show that it cares about domestic violence, when I recently reviewed the Super Bowl ads. It wasn’t the place to raise the issue, but now Deadspin writer Diana Moskovitz had done so in explosive fashion, in a piece called “No More, The NFL’s Domestic Violence Partner, Is A Sham.”
I think “sham” is a bit harsh, but her point is well-taken: the organization doesn’t really do anything to stop domestic violence. Its sole goal is to raise awareness of the problem by creating a “brand” that can be plastered on t-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads, stickers and tote bags. Oh—there’s also a pledge you can take. That’s about it. If you expected that the organization giving us the frightening ad featuring the terrified woman calling 911 was more than this, I guess “sham” may be fair. “Scam” may even be fair.
As Moslkovitz explains with barely restrained anger, No More is all about PR and feeling virtuous. It was inspired by the AIDS ribbons, which in turn were inspired by the yellow ribbons people wore to show support for the Iranian hostages in 1979, which in turn were inspired by…a Tony Orlando and Dawn song. As with Michelle Obama’s hashtag appeal to brutal Nigerian terrorists, none of these symbolic efforts are substantive, but they do make the good, caring people who perform them feel like they are solving a problem. Of course, they aren’t. Moskovitz:
“You know why they are doing this? Because it works. Because it makes money. Because we love pretending to care, especially when a brand makes it easier for us to do by removing all the pain, horror, darkness, and self-reflection and turning concern for others into products—preferably ones that can be worn. Do those teenage boys wearing “I Heart Boobies” really care about breast cancer? Probably not, but at least they’re thinking about it, right? And even if they don’t think about it, they generated money (a nickel on the dollar, maybe, but better than nothing) for a good cause!
This is how low our standards are. Gesture toward a good cause and you’re practically unassailable. No More gave Goodell and the NFL a cheap and perfect way out of a public relations disaster and we shouldn’t be surprised. We do the exact same thing every day when we throw on our Toms, our pink baseball hats, and our latest rubber bracelet of choice, shopping our way into another day with pure hearts and clean consciences.”
Did you and your kids miss the magic moment in the Super Bowl when Seattle’s Doug Baldwin celebrated a touchdown by miming the act of crapping out a football? You may have, because the broadcast’s director, undoubtedly primed for Seattle’s various crotch-grabbing antics—this is the biggest family TV event of the year, don’t you know—was on the alert for something ugly and snapped his cameras away.
But Baldwin still did it, and everyone in the stadium saw it. There was a penalty, and now Baldwin has been fined $11,000, the equivalent of a jay-walking ticket, the smallest fine for on-field misbehavior there is in the NFL. I tried to imagine, as a baseball fan, what would have happened in the World Series if, say, Pablo Sandoval had pretended to poop on home plate after scoring a key run. My guess is that he would have been thrown out of the game, suspended, fined, and instantly reduced his value as a free agent by 30% or more. Last season, Jonathan Papelbon, a moron, grabbed his crotch the way Seahawk Marshawn Lynch has been doing all season as he left a regular season game, was ejected, and suffered a wave of columns condemning him. How many columns have you read about Baldwin? See, the culture of football, and the standards of its fans, are so abysmal that a player embarrassing the league, the game, his team and the broadcast, not to mention parents watching the game with their children by pretending to poop out a football isn’t even a big deal now. After all, he didn’t cold-cock his girl-friend, beat a four-year old, murder someone, try to use doctored balls or deceive people into liquifying their brains: what’s the big deal? Continue reading →
The key question in any ethics problem is usually “What’s going on here?” With Brian Williams’ bizarre admission that he had been telling a false story involving his experience covering the Iraq War for over a decade, it’s impossible to say with confidence what is going on.
We know this: Williams told viewers on his evening news broadcast last week about an incident when he was covering the Iraq war, saying that a helicopter he was flying in was hit and forced down by an RPG. After the broadcast, soldiers began complaining on Facebook:
“Stars and Stripes” noticed, investigated Williams’ account and found it to be false. Williams quickly apologized, both on Facebook and in his Wednesday broadcast. Here is his Facebook recant:
“To Joseph, Lance, Jonathan, Pate, Michael and all those who have posted: You are absolutely right and I was wrong. In fact, I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in ’08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp. Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize. I certainly remember the armored mech platoon, meeting Capt. Eric Nye and of course Tim Terpak. Shortly after they arrived, so did the Orange Crush sandstorm, making virtually all outdoor functions impossible. I honestly don’t remember which of the three choppers Gen. Downing and I slept in, but we spent two nights on the stowable web bench seats in one of the three birds. Later in the invasion when Gen. Downing and I reached Baghdad, I remember searching the parade grounds for Tim’s Bradley to no avail. My attempt to pay tribute to CSM Terpak was to honor his 23+ years in service to our nation, and it had been 12 years since I saw him. The ultimate irony is: In writing up the synopsis of the 2 nights and 3 days I spent with him in the desert, I managed to switch aircraft. Nobody’s trying to steal anyone’s valor. Quite the contrary: I was and remain a civilian journalist covering the stories of those who volunteered for duty. This was simply an attempt to thank Tim, our military and Veterans everywhere — those who have served while I did not.”
Research has revealed that Williams has been telling various versions of the story for over a decade, sometimes saying he was in a helicopter behind the one hit by fire, sometimes saying, as he did on the David Letterman show last year, that he was actually a passenger on the helicopter forced down. Thus his Facebook apology is misleading, and the one he gave last night even moreso. At Powerline, John Hinderaker explains:
This is the statement that Williams read on-air tonight:
“After a groundfire incident in the desert during the Iraq war invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago….”
No: Williams has been telling the false story since shortly after the incident occurred. He told it for the last time, not the first, last week.
“It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert….”
Not since last Friday, but it took a decade or more since Williams first told the false story.
“I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. . . .”
Again, Williams tries to mislead: his “following aircraft” landed an hour after the one that took the hit from the RPG.
“This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and, by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not…”
A bungled attempt last Friday evening at the Rangers game. Williams implies, once again, that this was the first time he has told the false story. But he is on video telling the same story at least 13 times since 2003.
Williams’s on-air apology, like the Facebook version, was disingenuous. I doubt that it will help him in the long term.
Hinderaker, a prominent conservative political blogger, believes that Williams is certain to be fired as a result of the controversy, the convoluted details of which you can read about here, here, and here in addition to the Washington Post story linked above.
Fredrick is a 34-year-old father of three, and first tried the disfiguring haircut on his 12-year-old son, Rushawn, last fall. He claims it was a great success, since Rushawn’s grades“dramatically skyrocketed” after he was humiliated. And we all know the ends justify the means. Now, he claims, there has been a surge of interest from other parents.He told the Washington Post that he thinks African-American parents are looking for alternative ways of discipline after the uproar over Adrian Peterson—yes, that other NFL role-model–leaving bruises and welts on his four-year-old with a tree branch. All right, I’ll concede that humiliating a child among his peers and using childhood cruelty as a tool of discipline might be preferable to putting your child in the hospital because you beat the crap out of him. I will not concede that those are the only options, or that African American parents are so devoid of imagination and compassion that the only forms of discipline they can envision are forms of cruelty. Continue reading →
