From Pete.com:
If This Isn’t Genuine, It Should Be
From Pete.com:
Etiquette and manners
Double Standard Ethics: What the “Occupy Wall Street” Demonstrations Have Revealed So Far
1. When well-behaved middle-class Americans held rallies protesting specific U.S. policies, notably excessive spending, a CNN reporter challenged them on camera and accused the effort of being a creation of Fox News. When incoherently chanting anarchists, radicals and unemployed youths hold rallies advocating nothing constructive whatsoever, reporters are invariably respectful.
2. Thanks to the efforts of snickering CNN and MSNBC hosts, the emerging Tea Party was immediately referred to using a crude term for a gay sexual act. No such denigrating term has been employed to describe “Occupy Wall Street.” Continue reading
The Media Pundits’ Bigoted Preemptive Attack on Chris Christie
THIS seems to be a logical method for choosing a President.
Democrats and progressives are apparently terrified that a Republican will enter the presidential race who isn’t a religious zealot, a libertarian ideologue, a political tyro, a Mormon or a Texan, but a charismatic governor of a big northeastern state who is pragmatic, credible and successful. That would be Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, who may be about to throw his hat in the ring. So the word has gone out to the media, or the media is just sufficient trained to protect Democratic presidents without further instruction, that it needs to define Christie before the American public has a chance to form its own opinion, and the definition it has arrived at is fat.
You know, fat. As in Rush Limbaugh fat, fat like the political cartoonist Herblock always drew lobbyists and “Big Business.” Diamond Jim Brady fat; fat like Sydney Greenstreet, the villain in all those Humphrey Bogart movies. Fat means bad; fat means lazy; fat means unhealthy, and ugly. Fat people consume more than their share, and are disproportionately responsible for global warming and soaring health care costs, don’t you know. They have no self-control; they don’t have self-respect. We dread being stuck next to one of these porkers in an airplane. You can’t trust fat people. That’s really all you need to know about Chris Christie. This is America—we worship beautiful people. Fit people. Thin people….like, say, President Obama. Do we want to be led by someone who is fat? Of course not! Continue reading
A Word to the Wise-asses
Dear Wise-Ass,
I know that the fact you know I am a Boston Red Sox fan presents an irresistible opportunity for you to taunt, mock and tease me about the catastrophic choke-job my team just displayed to the world. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I am assuming that you are not a devoted and loyal fan of a sports team yourself, and thus think baseball is “just a game.” If that is the case, I forgive you for your supposedly humorous comments, which have approximately the same level of sensitivity and kindness in my current state as the following:
- “So I hear your mother kicked off! Aren’t you a little old to be an orphan? “
- “Lost your house, did you? Hey, I have a big cardboard box you can have!”
- “Still unemployed? I know: why don’t you start a career as a professional loser?”
I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t say any of these things (unless you’re a Yankee fan, in which case your whole moral compass is suspect), and I wonder if you understand that picking at the raw and bloody wound that is a beloved team’s tragedy is every bit as cruel and hurtful as such cracks would be. Incomprehensible as it may be to you, this was and is very important to me. My devotion to the Sox began when I was 12, and the team has given me more pleasure, grounding and wisdom than 99% of the people I have met in my life. Irrational though my emotional reaction may be, I’m in pain, and you shouldn’t have to empathize with the source of the pain to know that intentionally prolonging or magnifying that pain isn’t a very nice thing to do, and is nowhere near as funny as you seem to think its is.
I just thought you should know.
Jack
Non-Douche Neil Patrick Harris Almost Gets It Right
Neil Patrick Harris...no douche he! But is it for the right reasons?
In a cover feature story for Entertainment Weekly, Neil Patrick Harris (or whoever ghost-wrote for him) lays out his Hollywood Survival Guide. Secret of Hollywood Survival #6 for the star of “How I Met Your Mother” and ubiquitous awards show host is “Don’t Be A Douche”:
“Hollywood affords many opportunities to be a douche of epic proportions,” writes the grown-up “Doogie Howser,” “Avoid the temptation.” He continues:
“Being a pleasant person has got to count for something….Actors sometimes take themselves far too seriously and put themselves on a different level [from the crew.] But everyone’s working really hard and should be afforded the same level of respect.”
For that, Neil gets an Ethics Alarms salute. Unfortunately, he scars his achievement by going on to explain how the make-up people, the film editor and the transportation department can really nail you if you don’t treat them well.
Given the breezy tone of the article, Harris was probably joking, but the joke reinforces the misconception many people have about ethics, which is that ethical conduct is a quid pro quo. It’s not. The Golden Rule isn’t “Do nicely unto others do they won’t screw you over,” and someone’s less than nice behavior toward you doesn’t justify your being a douche to him. One isn’t respectful to the waiter because he’s liable to spit in your soup if you’re not, but because it’s the right way to treat other human beings.
Neil Patrick Harris certainly seems like a decent guy, and he probably is. I just wish, in the pursuit of a pretty stale joke about how the make-up people will get even by making you look like a troll, he hadn’t reinforced one of the most persistent of unethical rationalizations.
The Indignant Starbucks Squatter and the Compliance Mindset
OK...NOW it's selfish to squat at tables for hours.
I owe thanks to a blogger named JJ (and to Ken at Popehat, whose post brought him to my attention) for giving me one of the best illustrations of what I call “The Compliance Mindset” I have ever seen.
I’m sure it would horrify JJ to learn this, but he is ethically aligned with all the financial wheeler-dealers and unscrupulous mortgage lenders who crashed the U.S. economy. They also thrived in the Compliance Mindset, as do corrupt politicians, deceptive advertisers, dishonest journalists, sleazy lawyers, and millions of others in our culture who make life miserable for the rest of us for their own benefit. All of these people adopt the convenient belief that something must have a formal rule or law prohibiting it before it becomes wrong. This is, in fact, the opposite of the truth: if people were completely ethical, we would need very few rules. The Compliance Mindset is really an unethical rationalization that allows people to be rude, selfish, irresponsible, unfair, or worse because their conduct is technically legal and there isn’t a rule against it yet. Usually the rule or law arrives after a lot of needless harm has been done. Continue reading
Uncivil Exchange of the Week: Bristol Palin and a Heckler
Bristol Palin's celebrity in the absence of talent, wit or achievements is one good reason to resent Sara Palin
In a spontaneous encounter posted on YouTube, Bristol Palin was confronted by an insult-spewing patron the at Saddle Ranch Bar and Restaurant in West Hollywood last night.
Palin, 20-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin had just been thrown from a mechanical bull while filming her reality show for the BIO Network, when a 47-year-old man began shouting at her.
“Did you ride Levi like that?” he yelled, referring to the father of Bristol’s child, who has just published his memoirs of their relationship for the brain-damaged market. “Your mother is a whore! Your mother is a fucking devil!” he continued.
Bristol approached the man and asked, “Is it because you’re a homosexual and that’s why you hate her?”
“Pretty much … and why’d you say I’m a homosexual?” he responded.
“Because I can tell you are,” Bristol said, setting off the heckler again. “You’re fucking white trash from Wasila!” he screamed as she left the bar with her production crew. “Fuck you, you fucking bitch!”
Internet commenters are praising Palin for standing up to the clod. She deserves no praise. His sexual orientation had nothing to do with episode, and for her to raise that as her initial response to his unprovoked and hateful rant demonstrates that
1. She’s a bigot
2. She’s not ready for prime time, even as a reality star, and
3. She’s not even smart enough to realize that the episode reflects poorly on her, since the incident was taped and posted by her own film crew.
But we already knew that, didn’t we?
Shameless Oglers, Ethics Chess, and the Duty to Confront
Men who openly ogle the body parts of women in public make me want to turn in my Man Card and start dating Chaz Bono. I don’t know how people get like that, but no male should survive into his twenties with the idea that it is socially acceptable to stare at a woman’s breasts, legs, derriere or comely visage without an express invitation—and yes, some clothing choices can constitute such invitations. Absent that, however, a woman has the right not to be made to feel like a pole dancer, meat on the hoof, or a Sports illustrated swimsuit model simply because she is in public and in the presence of Y chromosomes.
The great relationship advice columnist Carolyn Hax addresses herself today to the lament of a woman who found herself unable to muster a response to a man in a restaurant who continued to stare at her chest, ruining her dinner. Hax initially disappointed me by suggesting that the woman should have simply switched seats, removing the attractive nuisance from his view. But she redeemed herself as she went on to urge the woman to prepare for her future encounters with ogling pigs, since given her natural endowments these were likely to occur:
“Learn to perform under duress through preparation.Ask yourself, now, what you can realistically hope to do in these situations, then prepare the words, gestures and/or actions. Say your plans out loud in the shower (seriously); repeat them to your friends by telling them the restaurant story and spelling out what you wish you had done. Even when practicing feels stupid, use repetition to teach your brain where the path is. In time, you’ll be able to find it no matter how rattled you get.”
This is what I like to call “ethics chess;” preparing yourself to handle ethical problems and dilemmas when they arise…thinking ahead regarding your tactics when a predictable event occurs, so you do the responsible and ethical thing. Continue reading
A Cautionary Ethics Tale From Texas
A Good Samaritan Teddy could relate to
In Texas, a 62-year-old man pulled over on the highway to help a couple whose truck had run out of gas. While he was assisting, the Good Samaritan apparently objected to the demeaning way the 31-year-old husband was addressing his wife, and said so. The husband then attacked the older man…who drew his concealed gun and shot him in the shoulder.
<sigh> Continue reading
The Real Meaning of Manny Being Manny
The only surprising aspect of the news yesterday that former baseball slugger-savant Manny Ramirez had been arrested for allegedly slugging his wife—the one alleging being said wife—is that any baseball fans were surprised. If anything was written in the Book of Fate, it was that this man, so completely lacking in respect for basic ethical values, was destined for trouble with the law.
While he was playing, of course, Manny’s uncivilized and cheerful contempt for basic rules and principles of right and wrong were tolerated by his employers, amused sportswriters and evoked cheers from fans. He was a great, great hitter, you see: who cares if he was habitually rude, unprofessional, slovenly, careless, disloyal, disrespectful and above all, selfish to his core? Look! He’s having fun! Isn’t that charming? Stop harping on little details, like hustling, sportsmanship, or being honest. Let Manny be Manny! Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 