Ethics Heroes

Ethics Hero: Pro Track Star Lauren Fleshman

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Lauren Fleshman

Lauren Fleshman is a 31-year-old track star whose attractive looks have garnered her product sponsorships, magazine covers and fashion show appearances. Thus it represents a noble sacrifice for her to choose to reveal the truth about her beauty and fitness—that she’s human, and is not as perfect a specimen of the species as the media would lead us to believe.

On her blog, Fleshman struck a blow against vanity and for the acceptance of realistic and healthy female body images by exposing the kinds of photos of glamorous athletes like her that the public isn’t usually permitted to see. Images like this… Continue reading →

Unethical Website Of The Month: Ranker

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments
"One of these things is not like the others..."

“One of these things is not like the others…”

Lists, especially stupid celebrity lists (Worst plastic surgery…Most overpaid…Actors with famous siblings…Actresses with high IQs) are a staple of the internet, and there are sites like Cracked (which does them well), Buzzfeed (which occasionally does) and Bleacher Report (which is sloppy unless it is doing lists of hot women, in which case it is just undiscriminating) that often appear to do little else. That’s fine; everything on the web doesn’t have to be edifying, profound or useful. Still, there are some basic rules of competence and responsibility even in list-making on the web. One is that as with any conduct involving the conveyance of information, do your homework and don’t mislead readers or  create misconceptions.

Another is that when you are dealing with individuals to whom you owe your nation’s very existence and who are as superior to you as a human being as you are to an anteater, show some damn respect.

Ranker, a second tier list site apparently operated by junior high school drop-outs (but whose lists are “recommended” by more respectable and heavily trafficked sites like Mediaite and The Daily Beast) failed these two essential principles with their offensive list, “33 Celebrities Who Have Killed People,” introduced with this:

“…Many celebrities were involved in tragic accidents that resulted in deaths, while others committed cold-blooded murder. Some celebs have served time in prison stemming from convictions, and others have gotten away with murder; sure, maybe they were wrongly accused, or maybe they just had great lawyers. Several famous people were involved in deadly car accidents. Former First Lady Laura Bush missed a stop sign and slammed her car into another vehicle, accidentally killing her friend who was driving the other car. She was in high school at the time of the accident. Other celebs who killed people in car accidents include Keith Moon, Ted Kennedy, and Rebecca Gayheart. What do you think about all the celebrities who have killed someone?” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Tom Wynkoop

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
Isn't it a beautiful day?

Isn’t it a beautiful day?

In Ligonier, Pennsylvania, Tom Wynkoop, owner of Fox’s Pizza Den, was inspired by the deadly cold of the last few days—below zero in  his region—to tweet an offer to pick up and deliver prescription medicines and other products to the elderly at no charge. The community, about 45 miles east of Pittsburgh, has many elderly residents. In his tweet,nice guy Wynkoop told those in need to just call his cellphone to arrange deliveries, and he’d be there. Several area seniors took him up on it, and kept out of the chill.

If I learn that Wynkoop had just hired a marketing consultant who suggested the idea as a publicity stunt, I think I’ll kill myself. Still, some needy seniors got their medicine, and in the end, that’s what matters. If Tom Wynkoop’s kindness ends up selling a few extra pizzas, good.

Gotta go inspire about 300 D.C .lawyers to be ethical now. Through a nasty rain storm.  And I just read yet another infuriating post on a baseball blog from a reader who calls treating steroid cheats as unfit for enshrinement in the Hall of Fame as “moralizing.” But thanks to a Pennsylvania pizza place owner, you just can’t  harsh my mellow.

__________________________

Pointer: Lianne Best

Facts: WTOP

Graphic: Daily design inspiration

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work or property was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Michael De Beyer, Like Don Bedwell, An Exemplary Ethics Hero To Inspire Us

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Mathis and hero

Writing about my favorite Ethics Hero of all time, Don Bedwell, in 2005, I began, “There are special and rare people whose ethical instincts are so pure and keen that they can make the rest of us feel inadequate.” Like Don Bedwell, Micheal De Beyer is such an individual.

Brittany Mathis, 19, works for De Beyer at his  Kaiserhof Restaurant and Biergarten in Montgomery, Texas, . Her mom and older sister work at the restaurant as well, so she would describe her boss as a family friend. In December, Brittany learned that she has a 1.5 inch brain tumor  She can’t afford to find out whether the tumor is benign or malignant, but her father died from a similar tumor years ago, so her situation is dire. She doesn’t have health insurance.

De Beyer has decided to sell his restaurant, which he opened more than 15 years ago and has an estimated worth of $2 million, to pay for whatever medical treatments are necessary to save Brittany’s life. “I’m not able to just sit by and let it happen,” De Beyer told a local paper. “I couldn’t live with myself; I would never be happy just earning money from my restaurant knowing that she needs help.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Former Brooklyn Judge Frank J. Barbaro (Zimmerman Furies: Is This Your Future?)

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

We can hope.

From the NY Times...

 The judge’s conscience gnawed at him a little more every year after he retired from the bench. With every news article he read about a wrongful conviction, Frank J. Barbaro, the former Brooklyn judge and assemblyman, would return to a particular murder case in 1999, and question whether he had made the right decision to send a man to prison for 15 years to life. Not long ago, Mr. Barbaro, 85, decided to contact the lawyer for the man, Donald Kagan. He got a transcript of the trial, during which Mr. Kagan had waived his right to a jury and put his fate in Judge Barbaro’s hands.

“As I read it, I couldn’t believe my eyes,” the former judge said in an interview. “It was so obvious I had made a mistake. I got sick. Physically sick.”

Mr. Barbaro’s change of heart led to a highly unusual spectacle this week in a Brooklyn courtroom: He took the witness stand in State Supreme Court to testify at a hearing that his own verdict should be set aside. His reason was even more unusual: As a die-hard liberal who had fought as a politician against racism in Brooklyn and weathered the race conflicts in Bensonhurst, he said he had been biased against Mr. Kagan because he was white and the shooting victim, Wavell Wint, was black.

“I believe now that I was seeing this young white fellow as a bigot, as someone who assassinated an African-American,” Mr. Barbaro testified on Wednesday before Justice ShawnDya L. Simpson. He added: “I was prejudiced during the trial.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Bill Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Clinton and Bloom

A couple of initial observations on an ironic first Ethics Hero for 2014:

  • President Clinton has been an Ethics Hero before, despite the fact that it was his successful efforts at corrupting the nation’s ethics that led me to launch my first ethics website.
  • As always, when Bill does the right thing, it raises the classic ethics conundrum: did he do the right thing because it was right; did he do it because he knew someone had to do right and he wanted to be first; did he do it because he felt he had a duty to do right; did he do it because he wanted to be perceived as doing right; or did he do it to fool people into believing that he was the kind of person who just does the right thing?
  • Good luck, New York City! You are going to need it.

The speakers lined up for  Mayor Bill  de Blasio’s inauguration’s made one wonder if being rude, arrogant and confrontational is a mandatory qualification for being a New York progressive. Continue reading →

The Fifth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Best of Ethics 2013

/ Jack Marshall / 51 Comments

Ethics Story 2013

I decided to start with the Best in Ethics this year, in contrast to other years, on the theory that it would get things off to a positive start in 2014. What it did, instead, was make me realize how negative Ethics Alarms was in 2013. Either there wasn’t much positive going on in ethics, or I wasn’t seeing it. My thanks to those of you who send me nominations for Ethics Heroes (and other stories); even when I don’t write about them, they are valuable. Please keep them coming. In the meantime, I pledge to try to keep the jaundice out of my eye in 2014. Things just can’t be as dire as they seemed last year.

Could they?

Here are the 2013 Ethics Alarms Awards for the Best in Ethics:

Most Important Ethical Act of the Year:

The U.S. Supreme Court declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, paving the way for the universal legalization of gay marriage. Yes, it was a legal decision, but it was also based, as all such culturally important decisions are, on a societal recognition that what was once thought to be wrong and immoral was, in fact, not. This is ethics, an ongoing process of enlightenment and wisdom about what is right and wrong, and the U.S. Supreme Court did its part. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Dallas Cowboys Back-up Quarterback-For-A-Day Jon Kitna

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
Quarterback Kitna, soon to be risking his brain for his high school.

Quarterback Kitna, soon to be risking his brain for his high school.

The Dallas Cowboys raised eyebrows in the sports world last week by making the desperation move of signing NFL veteran-turned-high school math teacher Jon Kitna, 41, to briefly abandon his retirement to help solve their quarterback crisis against the Philadelphia Eagles today. Since retiring from the Cowboys, Kitna, who played quarterback for 15 seasons with four NFL teams, has been teaching math and coaching football at Lincoln High School in his native Tacoma, Washington. Kitna, who retired after the 2011 season, will earn about $53,000 for the day’s work, which, the Cowboys hope, will consist of sitting on the sidelines as insurance against its replacement for Tony Romo, Kyle Orton, being injured like Romo was last week.

Now Kitna has announced that he will be donating his entire NFL check to the high school.

Yes, it’s true: Kitna is well-set financially, like most former pro athletes of recent vintage and long tenure. He is estimated to have about 12 million dollars as his nest egg. Nevertheless, this is a generous and unexpected act of generosity.

Now let’s all hope he doesn’t have to go onto the field, take a snap, get a concussion, and end up mentally disabled for the rest of his life.

For that is the risk he is being paid to take.

________________________________

Pointer: Daily Caller

Facts and Graphic: Dallas News

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work or property was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Ethics Hero: “Ludo,” Under-Employed Law Grad Blogger

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

True Grit - Reminds me of me

As Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) says of plucky Maddy Ross (Kim Darby) in the original, and best, film version of “True Grit,” Ludo “reminds me of me.”

Naturally, I admire him.

Ludo is, in his own words, ” a recent law school graduate and aspiring writer from Southern California. He is currently overeducated and underemployed, working two jobs and keeping sane only by writing down the stories of the crazy stuff happening to him.  He is currently working on his first book, a collection of stories from his days driving a taxi in Orange County….” He is beginning to get some publicity thanks to his blog, Law Grad Working Retail, which provides sometimes hilarious accounts of his current existence as an over-educated, presumed automatic admittee to America’s powerful and elite presumably thrust into life the way most of America lives it.

Do not lump Ludo with “Nando” and the other bitter, unemployed or under-employed recent law grads who have had their ire aroused by my observations about them on Ethics Alarms   (also here). He is doing exactly what he should be doing, using his unique talents to open up new opportunities while presenting himself to the world of law and elsewhere as a likely asset. As he writes in a recent post rebutting criticism of his blog… Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Judge Chet Tharpe

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
Same crime, same county: Guess which sexual predator-teacher got the tougher sentence.

Same crime, same county: Guess which sexual predator-teacher got the tougher sentence.

Florida Circuit Judge Chet Tharpe sentenced former Hillsborough County teacher Ethel Anderson to a stunning 38 years in prison this week for performing oral sex and other sex acts on a 12-year-old boy she tutored on weekends. “There are those that believe that nothing’s wrong if the defendant is a woman and the victim is a male,” Tharpe said as he sent the sexual predator to prison. “This court does not recognize gender. If it’s proven, as an adult, that you had sex with a child, you can expect to go to prison.”

This was an ringing and much needed message to send to a county, indeed to a country, that have often seemed confused about how to handle women who rape their underage students using the authority and trust they have as teachers. Especially in Hillsborough County, though, for it was here that ex-teacher Debra Lafave pleaded  guilty in 2005 to having sex with a 14-year-old boy,and was merely sentenced to house arrest by Judge Thorpe’s colleague Judge Wayne Timmerman. Why? Interesting question. LaFave’s lawyer famously argued that his movie star gorgeous client was too attractive to go to jail (recall the recent post here about defense attorneys appealing to bias), and it worked. Continue reading →