Vincent Cardinalli had been running a remarkably lucrative and heartless scam for years in Santa Clara, California, filing phony lawsuits against innocent citizens for towing and storage fees on vehicles they no longer owned or, in some cases, never owned. He was aided by a commissioner who routinely sided with him in the suits while ignoring obvious signs of a swindle. Cardinalli’s salad days ended, however, because a young lawyer decided to do his own investigation, on his own time, and uncovered enough to send the crook and his crooked son to jail. Continue reading
Ethics Heroes
The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The BEST of Ethics 2010
The Best in Ethics 2010. Not nearly long enough…but still a lot of men, women and deeds worth celebrating.
Most Important Ethical Act of the Year: Continue reading
Ethics Hero: President Obama
According to a tweet today from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, President Obama has quit smoking,
A president’s habits, be it “the vigorous life” of Teddy Roosevelt, not wearing a hat, like Jack Kennedy, or regarding fellatio from interns as “not sex,” as Bill Clinton did, have the power to change public attitudes and conduct for better or worse. This must have been an especially difficult time for Barack Obama to quit his long-time smoking habit, which typically is a response to stress. Despite perhaps the most stressful period in his life, the President did the right thing, and as good leaders must, to set an example.
We will never know for sure how much or how many, but his responsible conduct will undoubtedly change some behavior, and save some lives.
Ethics Hero: Sen.Tom Coburn
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has become the main villain in the battle over the 9/11 First Responders Bill, which will grant over 7 billion dollars in health care assistance to those who have become ill as a result of their heroic work in the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombings. He is leading Republican opposition to the bill, on the grounds that it still needs to be paid for despite its worthy purpose and its undeniably deserving beneficiaries.
Coburn is one of the most dedicated deficit hawks in the Senate, which means that he realizes that the federal deficit will never be brought under control if feckless House members and Senators can always be shamed and bullied into spending money the government doesn’t have, or into rejecting necessary cuts, through the use of one or more predictable refrains: Continue reading
Ethics Hero: Ex-Washington Redskins Holder Hunter Smith
The Washington Redskins and their fans thought they had made a last second comeback to tie last Sunday’s NFL game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. All they needed to do to send the game into overtime was to make the extra point, the virtually automatic seventh point of a touchdown that is successfully kicked in the pros about 99% of the time. It wasn’t to be, however: the ‘Skins long snapper snapped the ball high, the holder couldn’t hold it, and the game was lost.
After the game, the holder, Redskins punter Hunter Smith, told reporters that it was his job to catch errant snaps, and that he took responsibility for the loss. “If anybody needs to lose their job it’s me,” he said in the locker room. “I certainly accept blame.”
Sure enough, the Redskins, who are having yet another in a long line of disappointing seasons, fired him. Continue reading
Sigh. Cliff Lee Isn’t An Ethics Hero After All
I just pulled a post designating new Philadelphia Phillies pitching ace Cliff Lee an Ethics Hero “because more than any free agent sports figure in recent history, he displayed integrity, common sense, sound life priorities and courage by deciding where he wanted to ply his trade based on factors other than the size of his paycheck alone.” Sadly, Cliff’s honor is hereby revoked. As the details of the deal he has agreed to with the Phillies emerged this morning, it appears that he did not, as reported earlier, forgo the opportunity to make an additional $50 million dollars by signing with the New York Yankees or Texas Rangers. Arguably, he took the richest deal.
Sigh. Continue reading
Ethics Heroes: White Sox Pitcher Mark Beuhrle and His Wife Jamie
This isn’t an earth-shattering story, but a nice one, especially if you need more than Philadelphia Eagles touchdowns to help wash the Michael Vick episode out of your brain. Some pro athletes are actually kind to dogs.
Mark Beuhrle, the Chicago White Sox pitching star, learned about a Shetland Sheepdog that was shot with an arrow, and badly injured. Beuhrle and his wife have agreed to pay any unpaid medical bills for the wounded animal, which has undergone extensive surgery. He seems to be out of danger, too.
You can read the whole story of Shelby the Sheltie here.
Ethics Reality Check: Elizabeth Edwards Was No Hero
Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of pariah John Edwards, lost her long battle with cancer last week. The columns and broadcast tributes extolling her courage and character have been ubiquitous. She handled her illness with dignity, and the public revelation of her husband’s betrayal as well as could be expected. As is often the case when a public figure dies, however, the accolades have been excessive: calling Elizabeth Edwards a hero goes too far. When her opportunity for true heroism arrived, she not only rejected it, but chose a course of narrow self-interest that put the nation at risk. We can attribute this to ambition, human frailty, a mother’s warped perspective, or a bad decision under stress, but whatever the cause, her actions were the antithesis of heroism. Continue reading
Ethics Hero: Asra Nomani
Asra Q. Nomani is a Muslim. She is also is an American, an author, a women’s rights activist, and co-director of the Pearl Project. Today, in a column for the Daily Beast, she broke ranks with her religion and the absolutist foes of profiling as an anti-terrorist tool with a profoundly ethical act: she argued for new policies that may be against her own interests, but also may be in the best interest of her country and the public— because she believes it is the right thing to do.
The title of her essay: “Let’s Profile Muslims.”
Some excerpts… Continue reading
The University of Central Florida Cheating Scandal Irony: the YouTube Ethics Hero Is Really the Ethics Dunce
[Let me begin by apologizing to Ethics Alarms readers for coming so late to the party on this one. I recently read about the UCF business school cheating scandal and the viral video it spawned, and learned that they have been a major source of blog chatter and media attention for more than a week now. It was all news to me. When you spend your days and nights searching for stories presenting ethics issues and manage to miss one that people who aren’t even looking find with ease, you’re doing something wrong. I’m embarrassed. Many of you send me ethics stories you come across; keep doing that, please, and if you know of a big story that I seem to be ignoring, drop me an e-mail about it if you have the time [jamproethics@verizon.net]. Usually I’m ignoring it because I think the ethics of the matter are obvious, but sometimes it is because I have missed the forest for the trees. I’ll be very grateful.]
Now that I’ve arrived at the party, however, I intend to be the official pooper. The lionized professor and Youtube sensation in the incident, Richard Quinn, was a worse ethics violator that the students that he declared “disgusted him.”
In case you also missed the story, here are facts: Continue reading
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