Etiquette and manners

Unethical Web Post of the Week: “Screw Civility” by Rick Robinson

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Tell Alexander Hamilton how much fun incivility is...

That an ethics dolt like Rick Robinson has spent so much time advising those in the Halls of Power speaks volumes about why our government institutions are dysfunctional and corrupt. His biography says he even ran for Congress. With ethical values like his—weak, dubious, and confused—it is a miracle he wasn’t elected.

In an essay for Tucker Carlson’s conservative news site The Daily Caller, Robinson defends the uncivil rhetoric of Jimmy (““Let’s take these sons of bitches out …”) Hoffa Jr and Rep. Joe ( “You lie!”) Wilson on the historically false and ethically idiotic grounds that “America was built on a solid foundation of uncivil political discourse.” It is ethically idiotic because this is consequentialism (“Everything turned out all right, so it was the right thing to do”) and a rationalization (“They did it, so we can too!), and it is historically false because no nation, indeed no functioning organization of any kind, was built on incivility….especially this one. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Truck Nutz vs. Schweddy Balls

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Remember Truck Nutz? That may the name of Ben and Jerry's next flavor, if Schweddy Balls catches on...

I’ve been driving or lecturing all day and may be a little punchy.  Yet having last posted on Ethics Alarms about Ben and Jerry’s crude homage to Alec Baldwin (FULL DISCLOSURE: I would be likely to find any homage to Alec Baldwin offensive, since I find Alec Baldwin offensive) and juvenile word-play, I found myself wondering: which is more uncivil and disrespectful, Ben and Jerry’s new Schweddy Balls ice cream, or the large, red, swinging plastic scrotum decorations that some truckers hand at the tail end of their rigs, Truck Nutz?

So that’s your Ethics Quiz, dear readers, as we head into the weekend: Which is more arrogantly disdainful of public decorum, decency, and respect for one’s fellow community members? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces, and Crude Ones at That: Ben and Jerry

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Stop, you're killing me...

Sorry. I’m ready to be jeered as a humorless prude.  Ice cream flavors should not be named after gross double entendre Saturday Night Live skits. Ben and Jerry’s new Schweddy Balls ice cream (‘sweaty BALLS,” get it?? HAR!)  is just one more step in coarsening the culture, and an unnecessary one.

The skit was a one-joke parody of earnest NPR cooking shows in which a character named Mr. Schweddy talked about his signature holiday confection, rum balls, or “Schweddy balls.” It was funny (hardly hilarious, though; anyone who thinks that is hilarious is 12); it also aired after midnight. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream is sold during the day, the joke is old, and the only point to naming the ice cream after the joke is to sneak something crude into plain view. Wow. What an accomplishment.

The ice cream name is no more or less tasteless, rude and juvenile than naming a New York bar “Buck Foston,” or a TV show called “$#*! My Father Says.” The slobs and foul-mouthed jerks among us won’t rest until everyone talks like sailors and ugliness is everywhere, and they will do it while being applauded by self-styled “liberals” who are really just old-fashioned boors.

It’s not a big deal, any more; the boors are getting their way, because not enough people are willing to endure the guaranteed “Oh, lighten up!” and “Get off your high horse!” sneers that will follow any objections. I hope those big belly laughs from  “Sweaty Balls” ice cream are worth it, I really do. As long as it makes you guys happy.

“Sweaty Balls” ice cream. You slay me.

Ethics Hero: ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Neat trick by Jay Carney: Speaking for the President, AND doing an uncanny impression of a weasel!

It shows the degree to which we now take bias and favoritism by the news media for granted that a reporter doing what once was regarded as his duty now appears heroic.  Sadly, that is where we are.

That is also why Jake Tapper warrants an Ethics Hero designation for pressing White House press secretary Jay Carney on the obvious disconnect between President Obama’s lecture on civility in January in the wake of the Giffords shooting, and his happy acceptance of the call by  Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. to “take these sons of bitches out” at a rally over the weekend. The exchange: Continue reading →

Civility and Integrity Tests For Democrats Are Not Going Well At All

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Yup, she's just as good as Michael Steele.

Over the weekend, President Obama sat beaming as Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa’s (that’s Jr….not the dead one whose mob connections sent him to sleep with the fishes. It is touching, though, that the Teamsters are so devoted to tradition and maintaining that organization’s long-time”values”…) call for workers to combat the Tea Party and “take these son-of-a-bitches out.” Last week, Rep. Andre Carson accused conservative colleagues in Congress of wanting to lynch African-Americans. The week before, Rep. Maxine Waters told a cheering audience that “the Tea Party can go straight to Hell!”, and in the weeks before that, other members of the party, perhaps even Vice President Biden, took turns calling Republican’s “terrorists.” None of these comments have been repudiated or criticized by leaders in the party.

This morning on Fox News, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debby Wasserman Schultz made it crystal clear that no criticism would be forthcoming, either. Asked by morning host Gretchen Carlson about her party’s official position on the use of such unambiguously uncivil (and arguably violent) rhetoric by Hoffa, Wasserman Schultz launched into a non-responsive, pre-packaged statement about how everyone had to “focus like a laser on turning this economy around.” Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Flying the Confederate Flag…”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Blogger Edward Carney, who writes about the revelations of daily life (check out his blog here) put his finger on a central issue in the Confederate flag debate in his Comment of the Day.  Flying or displaying the provocative banner sends multiple messages simultaneously, and the individual responsible for the flag  is also responsible for the consequence of all of them. Claiming that one means no offense while knowing that one of the messages is unequivocally offensive is disingenuous,  naive, or willfully rude.

Here is the Comment of the Day on the post, “Flying the Confederate Flag..”:

“I’ll say this for those citizens and politicians who insist on flying the Confederate flag at local monuments and public events: at least they can make the argument that it represents history and a set of values that is still acceptable, even laudable, today. They can make that argument, however disingenuous it may be. The same cannot be said of everyone. Continue reading →

Labor Day Ethics Dunce: The Muscular Dystrophy Association

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Jerry Lewis earned the right to say good-bye on his terms--even if they were the wrong ones.

Nobody expected it to be easy for the Muscular Dystrophy Association to part ways with Jerry Lewis, who gave everything he had to building the organization over nearly six decades. Now 85, Lewis, a famously difficult talent with an outsize ego even by show-business standards, was bound to insist that he be allowed to all but drop dead at his post, mid-Labor Day telethon. In recent years, that seemed a real possibility, as Jerry’s health and age made him more a figure of pity and curiosity than a viable host.

Nonetheless, Jerry Lewis has raised, by the MDA’s own calculations, about $2,5 billion dollars, beginning when Eisenhower was president and TV was a novelty. The organization owes him, well, everything. They certainly owed him the opportunity to exit on his own terms, even if it was too late, even if it was self-indulgent on his part, and even if, though this is highly unlikely, it cost the organization more in lost contributions than kicking him to the curb will. Continue reading →

Flying the Confederate Flag: Protected Speech? Of Course. Unethical? Absolutely.

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Honor them for their valor if you must, but there was nothing honorable about their cause or their flag.

Once again, emerging from under-ground like a the seven-year locust, a controversy over the flying of the Confederate Flag is raging, this time in Lexington, Virginia, burial place of two Confederate heroes, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. A proposed city ordinance would prohibit the flying of the Confederate banner on downtown poles, and some Southern heritage buffs as well as Jackson and Lee fans are upset. “By all means [Jackson and Lee] should be honored,” said Brandon Dorsey, commander of Camp 1296 of the Stonewall Brigade of the Confederate Veterans. “I look at the flag as honoring the veterans.”

The problem is, Brandon, that a large number of Americans look at that same flag as honoring slavery and racism, and for good and historical reasons. Continue reading →

Ethics Train Wreck Warning: Affirmative Action for the Hideous

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

You won't need that portrait any more, Dorian...the Americans with Disabilities Act has you covered!

It is rare that an ethics train wreck of culture-wide proportions can be prevented with a firm, “Shut up, and go away!” This appears to be one of those times, however, and if anyone is reluctant, I hereby volunteer for the job.

Daniel S. Hamermesh, a professor of economics at the University of Texas, is shilling for his book, “Beauty Pays,” in which he proves the unremarkable fact that being attractive is an advantage in society , and being unattractive is an impediment. He recently hit the op-ed pages of the New York Times, writing, among other things, this:

“Why this disparate treatment of looks in so many areas of life? It’s a matter of simple prejudice. Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers’ refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects.”

“How could we remedy this injustice?”

Whoa! There it is, the magic words that open the door for ham-handed social architects to do what they always to do, try to remedy the results of natural human proclivities and preferences with laws. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Greta Van Susteren

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Welcome to the Wisconsin Supreme Court!

“Are any of the newspaper asking for them to step down? People have very serious disputes and their whole lives depend on decisions on the Supreme Court, and this isn’t fair to the people. Are newspaper editors saying they got to go?”

—-Fox News Host Greta Van Susteren, asking Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel reporter Jason Stein why the Wisconsin news media has not demanded  the removal of Justice David Prosser and  Justice Ann Walsh Bradley or both, since by all accounts they turned ideological differences into a physical altercation in chambers. The reporter ducked the question, and blamed it all on Gov. Scott Walker, thus taking “missing the entire point” to art form status.

Van Susteren is not only right, but obviously right. Continue reading →