Ethics Heroes

Ethics Hero: East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I know what you are going to say.  There has to be an angle, right?

“Come on: fool me once, shame on you, fool me 67,896,432 times, shame on me. A mayor donates her kidney to a citizen of her city just because it’s a nice thing to do?  Who is gullible enough to believe that?“

East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon, like many politicians, uses her Facebook page less for social networking than for political public relations, and to built those fundraising mailing lists, of course.  Almon was perusing the status updates of her more than 1,600 “friends” last year when she happened to read the status update of Carlos Sanchez, whom knew slightly. It said his friends and relatives had all been tested and couldn’t donate a kidney, which he needed desperately.

So  Almon, 35, got tested, was a match, and gave him her kidney. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: P.G.A. Golfer Brian Davis

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I don’t follow golf, but if this sort of thing happens very often, I may have to become a fan…in spite of Tiger Woods.

P.G.A. tour veteran Brian Davis was facing Jim Furyk in a playoff at the Verizon Heritage, and trying to finally win a P.G.A. event. His approach shot to the first hole in the playoff bounced off the green and landed in the rough. When Davis attempted to knock the ball back up to the green, his club barely swiped a weed on his backswing. The rules of tournament golf decree that touching anything lying around the ball during a player’s backswing violates  the prohibition against moving loose obstacles or impediments to a shot. The required penalty: two strokes, enough to guarantee that David would lose the play-off and his best, maybe only, chance for PGA glory, not to mention a seven figure prize.

Davis may have been the only one to notice the infraction, but golf is a game that calls for self-reporting. That’s what he did: he called the violation on himself, and made himself a loser. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: CNN

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CNN has begun to get hammered in the ratings, in the midst of a policy change that has the venerable cable news staking out novel ground: it is being objective. This used to be known as “journalism.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: University of Wisconsin

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I am not 100% certain that the University of Wisconsin’s complaint about Nike’s responsibilities is fair. The important thing is that the University has thought the matter through, decided what the right thing to do is after serious analysis, and is taking principled action.

The Universityhas cancelled its licensing agreement with Nike to protest what it considers Nike’s inadequate efforts to help laid off workers in Honduras factories that make Nike products. Two factories that abruptly closed, both Nike sub-contractors, have not paid the $2.6 million in severance required  by Honduras law.Under The school’s Code of Conduct commits the 500 companies that make products bearing the University of Wisconsin logo to take responsibility for their subcontractors’ actions. In rejecting Nike, Wisconsin will be forfeiting royalty income from its Wisconsin products. Continue reading →

Of Interns, Heroes, and Hoaxes

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Intern exploitation: The New York Times explores the burgeoning practice of using unpaid interns, exploiting college students and graduates desperate for experience by “allowing” them to do menial office tasks without even minimum wage compensation. It is a perfect scheme, really: the student doesn’t want to burn bridges, so doesn’t complain, and the company avoids hiring a worker. The problem is that it is dishonest and unfair, as well as illegal.

Remembering Ethics Hero Jerry terHorst: J. F. terHorst has died, and though he was a distinguished reporter, what made him an Ethics Hero was one act of principle unrelated to reporting. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero (sort of, maybe, a bit): Google

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Google is a little like the turncoat in an action movie who almost sinks the hero but then makes a surprise return at the climax to save the day. In 2006, many of us were disgusted when Google agreed to help the oppressive Chinese government censor speech and information in exchange for getting a crack at the biggest market on the planet. We heard the company’s rationalizations about compromising their principles now to help open up Chinese society, but the truth always was that “Do no evil” Google was willing  to do evil for four years in exchange for a lot of yen.  At last the company finally decided that it couldn’t look at itself in its virtual mirror anymore, abandoned its agreement to help China control what its people could read and say, and moved its server to Hong Kong.

Google has garnered a lot of praise on-line and elsewhere for its decision. The company did the right thing, it is true, but it would have been far more admirable if it had taken the same position four years earlier, and refused to play the part of China’s cyber-muzzle in its quest for big bucks.

That feckless guy in the action movie who comes back in the last reel isn’t really a hero, you know. The only reason he is in a position to act like one is that he did the wrong thing in the first place. We’re glad he had a change of heart, sure. But let’s not get carried away.

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Update: In the category of getting “carried away,” here is a stunning example from “Op-Ed News”:

“…again Google has found itself in a situation where its ethics are being challenged by one of the most oppressive governments (In our opinion) in the Global Community, and rather than backing down, Google has chosen to stand-up for their belief that moral values and ethics trump corporate profit, an occurrence so rare these days that we believe Google  deserves special recognition for refusing to compromise their core ethics of “Don’t be Evil,” even in a situation where it could result in the loss of huge profits in China’s booming economy and what may one day be one of the largest Internet markets in the world…”

The author, William Cormier, conveniently ignores the fact that Google’s decision that “moral values and ethics trump corporate profit” has only come after four years of letting profit trump its values. What does he think Google has been doing the last four years? Does he really believe China just started  censoring Google searches? You can read his entire, hilarious hosanna to Google here.

Ethics Dunce: Itawamba County, Miss. School Board; Ethics Hero: Constance McMillan

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

It will be interesting, as well as depressing, to see how many innocent bystanders are injured as various institutions and organizations emulate Washington D.C.’s Catholic Charities’ “solution” to its objection to  gay Americans having legally enforced rights to do what anyone else can. That organization’s draconian solution was that if a benefit can’t be withheld from gays, then the benefit isn’t worth giving. Thus, because it believed that providing health benefits to the now legally recognized same-sex spouses of gay employees would imply endorsement of conduct it considers sinful, the charity eliminated spousal benefits for all new employees, harming the innocent to show contempt for…well, the innocent.

Who could pass up logic and justice like that? Not the Itawamba County, Miss. school board! Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Henri Salmide, 1919-2010

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
Henri Salmide by the port he saved, and came to love.

Henri Salmide by the port he saved, and came to love.

In the Nuremberg war crimes trials following World War II, the Allies took the high-minded position that “just following orders” was no defense to “crimes against humanity” committed during wartime. It is and has always been much easier to argue for defying military orders in the abstract, however, than in real combat situations. Conveniently, the victors in a war can take such a position, even knowing in their hearts, as most honest soldiers do, that they themselves might not be able to muster the courage and conviction to tell a commanding officer, “No!”

Henri Salmide, a former German soldier in World War II who died in France this week, would have been an appropriate judge for the trials, for he would not have been plagued by any such conflict or hypocrisy. For Salmide, back when he was called by his birth name of Heinz Stahlschmidt, was a rare and remarkable man who did defy an order he knew was wrong, and saved a city with his courageous, dangerous, and principled actions. Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes Odd Couple: Sen. Jim Bunning and the Washingon Post

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“The point Mr. Bunning was trying to make was a reasonable one: At some point, Congress has to stop borrowing and spending, even for worthy purposes.”

This wasn’t Rush Limbaugh talking, or some Fox News talking head. This was the Washington Post, in an editorial, validating the Kentucky senator’s lonely stand in which he single-handedly placed a five-day “hold” on a $10 billion bill to pay for extended unemployment benefits and other popular programs.

Bunning’s symbolic protest was vilified by the Democrats and disowned by most Republicans. As the Post editorial pointed out, it was “spectacularly bad politics,” giving the Democrats a perfect foil to symbolize the heartlessness of “the Party of No.” Courage and principle are often, and perhaps, sadly, always bad politics. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Liev Schreiber, an Actor Who Understands the Duty to Act

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The rescue situation is finally beginning to come into focus. If you are in need to be rescued in a public venue, you don’t want to have to depend on the rapid response of off-duty EMT’s or the assistance of on-duty security personnel. No, what you need nearby is a good, professional, quick-thinking, courageous Broadway actor.

Liev Schreiber, the star of the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s drama “A View From the Bridge,” rushed to the aid of an audience member who lost consciousness during a performance. The man’s wife began screaming for help, and when the theater house lights were turned on, Schrieber could be seen emerging from backstage and running down the aisle to where the unconscious man was sitting. The actor tried to offer aid to him until a physician emerged from the audience, and eventually the stricken audience member was placed in the care of paramedics. Continue reading →