Ethics Dunces

Ethics Dunces: The Staff of Milford, Ohio Elementary School

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

A sixth grade boy informed his mother that his teacher and an aide at the Milford Elementary School had forced him to him to stand before his sixth-grade classroom as they put his shoulder-length hair in  ponytails, and then introduced him to his classmates as a new female student. Then the aide took him to other classrooms and did the same thing.

The mother has filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, seeking  damages for the alleged violation of her son’s constitutional rights and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Trijicon Inc

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Once again, being an Ethics Dunce and being a regular, garden variety dunce goes hand in hand.

Last week it was reported that Trijicon Inc of Wixom, Michigan, the company that makes the scopes on rifles used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been engraving them with a Biblical reference. The reference is 2COR4:6, short for 2 Corinthians 4:6, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Terrific idea, guys. As Americans fight conflicts in the Middle East while maintaining to the Muslim world that we are in not engaging in a war against Islam, you send our soldiers into battle with Christian quotations on their weapons.  Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: New York Times Sportswriter Ken Belson

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I fear that I am becoming a broken record on this (Note to those under the age of 40: the phrase “becoming a broken record” refers to the archaic devices called “records” which once were used to convey music via another archaic device know as a “phonograph.” If a record was broken, as in cracked, the phonograph’s needle, which…oh, never mind. We really need a new phrase for “saying the same thing over and over again.”), but the popular position that only the pure and blameless have the right to condemn misconduct by others threatens our culture’s ability to discuss and distinguish right and wrong. It has to be refuted, discredited, and buried. For subliminal support for this  unethical stance to be injected into a supposedly straight news item—in the sports pages, of all places—is alarming, for it shows how our cultural attitudes can be warped without our even being aware of it. Continue reading →

Ed Schultz Shows How to Be Wildly Unethical in Fifty Words Or Less

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The pattern is distressingly clear now. Fox News finds an arrogant, doctrinaire talking head on the Right, Bill O’Reilly, and soon its Left-tilted rival, MSNBC, has recruited an even more arrogant, doctrinaire talking head on that side of the spectrum, the assaultive Keith Olbermann. O’Reilly uncivilly calls those he disagrees with “pin-heads,” while Olberman calls them “the Worst Person in the World.” This motivates Fox to find a commentator on the Right who makes O’Reilly seem modest and measured, Glenn Beck. This, naturally, pushed MSNBC to look under every rock to find a liberal host who can out-Beck Beck.

The bad news: they succeeded, and found Ed Schultz, who is louder, cruder, more uncivil and less fair than any of the above-mentioned blowhards. The worse news: if you out Beck Beck, no responsible station should put you on the air. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: the North Carolina State Personnel Commission

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

In a video that I prefer not to link to, North Carolina Highway Patrolman Charles Jones is shown hanging his K-9 partner, Ricoh, off the ground and brutally kicking him because the dog would not release his hold on a chew toy. That video (and another similar one) got him fired, but the State Personnel Commission just reversed the decision, saying that Jones’s conduct did not sink to a level justifying dismissal for cause, only discipline for “unsatisfactory job performance.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: PETA

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

PETA has a new poster out, announcing with approval that  Carrie Underwood, Tyra Banks, Oprah Winfrey and the First Lady are “among the most stylish and influential women in America,” and “they all refuse to wear real fur.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Tag Heuer

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Swiss watch company Tag Heuer announced today that it would drop Tiger Woods from its advertising.  The CEO of the company told  Swiss paper Le Matin, “We recognize Tiger Woods as a great sportsman but we have to take account of the sensitivity of some consumers in relation to recent events.”

Translation: We, of course, would never presume to question the character and integrity of a husband and father who engages in serial adulterous affairs with any cocktail waitress, lingerie model, porn star, reality star or other owner of two x chromosomes as long as she had the physical dimensions of Jessica Rabbit, but such conduct apparently displeases some of our customers, heaven knows why, and though we’d use Martin Bormann as a spokesperson if he sold enough watches, our guess is that Tiger won’t. So he’s out.

This is called “doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.”

But these are the Swiss, after all. They wouldn’t even take a stand against Hitler.

Ethics Dunce: Sen. Al Franken

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

In the midst of the increasingly tense and contentious Senate debate over its health care reform bill, Sen. Joe Lieberman asked for unanimous consent to extend his remarks “an additional moment.”  Sen. Al Franken was taking his turn presiding over the Senate, and to  Lieberman’s amazement, refused. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Nike

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I promise: this is the last post related to Tiger Woods for a while, at least.

BUT… Here is Nike’s statement regarding Tiger’s hiatus from golf and his other, uh, issues:

“Tiger has been part of Nike for more than a decade. He is the best golfer in the world and one of the greatest athletes of his era. We look forward to his return to golf. He and his family have Nike’s full support.”

This raises several intriguing questions: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce (and Dead Canary): Desiree Rogers

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Ah, yes…the Desiree Rogers saga!

Desiree Rogers is the White House Social Secretary. She screwed up in her job. The odds are that 99% of the time, her particular lapse wouldn’t have had any tangible effect. She was unlucky, however, and it did.

It did because the Secret Service picked the same night to get sloppy, so a couple of professional cons obsessed with becoming the next Andy Warhol Stupid Celebrities of the Quarter Hour brazened their way into a White House state dinner, where, if they had been Ninjas or Steven Segal in disguise, they pretty much could have killed anyone they wanted to, including President Obama. They weren’t Ninjas; not all of Desiree’s luck was bad. They were only self-obsessed idiots. Continue reading →