Etiquette and manners

Ethics Dunces: Homestead-Miami Speedway NASCAR Fans

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

"Why, welcome, Mrs. Obama, and thank you for making time in your busy schedule to grace our community's event!"

NASCAR fans at Homestead-Miami Speedway yesterday booed first lady Michelle Obama when she was introduced as one of the grand marshals for the race. This isn’t a tough call: that was mean-spirited and rude.

I’ve seen elected officials booed at sporting events, and sometimes it comes off as funny. I remember Vice-President Hubert Humphrey being booed at a Red Sox game, because the fans knew he was there to root for the Minnesota Twins, then playing the Sox for the pennant on the next-to-last day of the 1967 season. Hubert laughed it off. Other examples of booing officials have not been so benign, as when President Herbert Hoover was jeered at a Washington Senators game. Booing a politician, however, is always part demonstration and part entertainment; I wouldn’t do it, but it’s political speech. with a long, long tradition behind it.

Michelle Obama, however, isn’t a politician or elected official. Booing a family member to show disapproval of a politician who isn’t present is not just rude, it’s unfair and cowardly. Mrs. Obama came to the event as a  guest, and should have been treated as one. She also deserves a modicum of respect as part of the First Family. Sure, it was a political appearance, and I’m certain there are other things the First Lady would rather spend her time doing, like, say, throwing playing cards into a hat. Nevertheless, she has done nothing to justify public jeering.

A side note: many of the news accounts stated that the crowd booed Mrs. Obama and Jill Biden, the wife of  Vice President Biden, who was introduced at the same time. Not one American in 10,000 could pick Jill Biden out of a line-up; that’s misleading reporting, either to minimize the magnitude of the insult to Mrs. Obama, or because the reporters really are that dumb. Take your pick.

The Ethics of Giving Chris Matthews “A Taste of His Own Medicine”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

MSNBC host Chris Matthews was a guest on Larry Elder’s conservative radio talk show, a visit arranged by his publicist to market Matthews’ new hagiography on Jack Kennedy. Elder was hardly friendly, immediately shifting into an adversarial mode and challenging the surprised Matthews on his integrity as a journalist, objectivity and  fairness. After Matthews absurdly described himself as “slightly to the left” politically (actually a fair description one upon a time, but no longer), Elder produced a recent clip of Matthews declaring that Republicans want “people who don’t have insurance to die on the gurney,” and enjoy “causing cruel pain on people.” When Matthews tried to explain, Elder broke in, saying, “I’m sorry for cutting you off the way you cut your guests off.” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Apologies For A Sandusky Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

My uneasy relationship with the TSA continues.

Yes, I've sunk so low that I actually seek this out...

Today I was returning home from Atlanta, and its monster of an airport has one the cattle pen systems for going through security–a long, ling, line to all gates that keeps dividing and dividing, ultimately sending you down one of about 20 chutes to be scanned, stripped and yelled at. It is difficult to pick your chute, but in my case, it is crucial: Atlanta doesn’t have the full-body scanning devices in every line, and without it, I get gated, beeped, and sexually molested, thanks to my artificial hip.

It took ducking under a couple of barriers, but I finally got to an x-ray conveyor belt near a scanner, and had removed my laptop (separate bin) belt, jacket and shoes (not allowed in a bin in some cities, allowed in others) and lined them all up with my bag and brief case when an agent (none too politely) told me that they were closing that line, and directed me to another one, two lanes over. I lugged the three bins, bag and brief case over to that line, only to discover that it didn’t have a scanner.

That did it. I erupted at one of the agents, telling her that I did not care to be felt up at 8 in the morning, thanks, and had made a good faith effort to direct myself to a scanner, being foiled by the agent and by the fact that there are no signs warning people like me where a testicle massage is the only option.

“Why aren’t there signs?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There should be,” she said, as she helped me move my stuff to a scanner accessible line. “You should write the TSA and the airport.”

I laughed bitterly. “I’m sure that will do a lot of good. Do you all jsut like feeling up passengers? Is that the reason?”

A woman behind me laughed and said, “It sure seems like it!”

“Well, you know,” I said to her, “I hear Jerry Sandusky is trying to get a job as a screener!”

Her guffaw was interrupted by 7’8″ TSA agent, who said, loudly, “No he’s not, and I’m offended by that statement.”

My response, after a second’s consideration, was this: “I’m sorry I offended you. But I’m not apologizing.”

Your ethics quiz of the day: Should I have apologized? Continue reading →

Flashback: “Law, Citizenship, and the Right to be a Jackass”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Wrong country, same gesture.

[The principal in this tale from a post early in Ethics Alarms’ existence just dicsovered it, and sent some additional detail in a comment.  I am fairly certain that almost nobody read the original post, and I had completely forgotten about it myself. Its central point is still valid, however, and since it involves  an ethics conflict that has frequently re-appeared here—the duty to respect law enforcement officials versus the right not to, and the proper handling of a citizen who is rude, abusive, or worse—I thought I’d revive it.

Much thanks is due to David Hackbart for his considerate comment.]

Three springs ago on the streets of Pittsburgh, David Hackbart was starting to parallel park when a car pulled up behind him. Don’t you hate that? Hackbart did too, and presented his flip-off finger to the anonymous driver in silent protest. “Don’t flip him off!” came a shouted edict from someone outside his car, and Hackbart, not in the mood for officious intermeddling, gave the anonymous civility referee The Finger as well. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: An Unknown Diner

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

A waiter’s tale from a website called An Orange Box:

The waiter vows vengeance.

Here’s tip to the Faithful: this isn’t the way to convert anybody.

My 15 Hollywood Cures For A Paterno-Penn State-Sandusky Hangover, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Part 1 listed the first seven of my 15 cinematic remedies for Penn State-inspired ethics ennui. Part 2 includes the final eight. Please don’t take the order too seriously; I could have shuffled the whole batch. I also tried to include as many genres as possible. When it comes to ethics, good lists can be compiled using all Westerns, all sports movies, all war movies, courtroom drama or science fiction. Here we go…

8. Spartacus (196o)

The raw history is inspiring enough: an escaped gladiator led an army of slaves to multiple victories over the Roman legions in one of the greatest underdog triumphs ever recorded. Stanley Kubrick’s sword-and-sandal classic has many inspiring sequences, none more so than the moment when Spartacus’s defeated army chooses death rather than to allow him to identify himself to their Roman captors (“I am Spartacus!”)

Ethical issues highlighted: Liberty, slavery, sacrifice, trust, politics, courage, determination, the duty to resist abusive power, revolution, love, loyalty.

Favorite quote: “When a free man dies, he loses the pleasure of life. A slave loses his pain. Death is the only freedom a slave knows. That’s why he’s not afraid of it. That’s why we’ll win.” [Spartacus (Kirk Douglas)] Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Disloyalty…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Good ol' whatshisname. We'll never forget him.

…also ingratitude, venality, and crassness.

Baseball’s  Kansas City Royals are putting the name of their ball park, now Kauffman Staudium, up for corporate bidding. Soon the stadium that stood as a monument to the late Kansas City community leader Ewing Kauffmann, who owned the Royals in their very first season (1969), built the state-of-the-art home for them that is still a source of civic pride, and turned the team into a model franchise and perennial pennant contender in record time, will be named “Kansas City Masterpiece Stadium” or something else that makes it a giant billboard. Meanwhile, little will be left to remind future baseball fans and Kansas City residents of the life and dedication of the man who was responsible for the city having a major league team at all. Continue reading →

Five Questions and Answers About The Steven J. Braun Law Firm Halloween Party Outrage

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Imagine: tasteless Halloween costumes!

Background: New York Times Joe Nocera is stirring up public outrage because some employees of a law firm involved in questionable foreclosure practices attended the firms 2010 Halloween party dressed as homeless people. Photos taken at the Steven J. Baum law firm’s Halloween party last year were passed along to Nocera by a former firm employee.  In one that was posed on the Times site, two party-goers are dressed as  homeless people, with one holding a sign that reads, “I lost my home and I was never served.” Nocera wrote that the costumes show an “appalling lack of compassion.”

Here are ten questions and answers regarding ethics issues raised by the incident. Continue reading →

Henry James, Mis-Matched Neighbors and the Naked Silhouette

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Like most people, I grew up being told that it was dangerous to hitch-hike, because of the many predatory drivers waiting to pounce, and also never to pick up hitch-hikers, because some of them were serial killers. I always seemed to me that the odds favored an eventual convergence in which a psychopathic motorist picked up a murderous hitch-hiker. I wonder what happens then.

Neighbor disputes are often like this: pure chance places very different  people side-by-side, one an inconsiderate boor, and the other an intolerant jerk. We know what happens then: exactly what has happened in Great Falls, Montana.

Brian Smith objects to the large decal on neighbor Shanna Weaver’s car. The decal portrays a white silhouette of a naked woman. To him, it’s pornography, and he objects to have to look at it.  “My upbringing dictates that the human body is a sacred thing, not something that should be put on display,” Smith said. Weaver, however, is not inclined to remove it. “It’s my freedom of speech, which he can’t take away,” Weaver says. “It’s no different than the mud flaps that you see on trucks.”So Smith filed a complaint against Weaver for violating the local anti-pornography ordinance, which was a stretch. [In an earlier version of this post, it wa stated that Weaver sued him for harassment, and was thrown out of court. That was in error, and Ethics Alarms apologizes for its mistake.] Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: “The Graduate” Variation—Illegal Yet Ethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Except in THIS version of "The Graduate," it's Benjamin Braddock's MOTHER banging on the window. Come to think of it, Dustin Hoffman couild play her, too!

For your weekend Ethics Quiz, Ethics Alarms asks your assessment of a situation that may be that rarity, conduct that is illegal but ethical, by far the rarest in the spectrum that is…

Legal and Ethical—Legal and Unethical—Illegal and Ethical—Illegal and Unethical

In Nevada, Justin Lew Harris’ wedding at the Carson Valley United Methodist Church was underway when his mother burst on the scene, Dustin Hoffman-style, and loudly objected to the ceremony. As she protested, Harris physically carried her out of the church, which constitutes battery. Mom’s tactic worked, though: that stopped the wedding, at least for now.

Now Harris, 35, faces misdemeanor charges  for disorderly conduct and coercion, presumably being pressed by his loving mother. He was released from the Douglas County Jail on his own recognizance.

No doubt about it: his conduct was pretty clearly against the law. But was it ethical? Continue reading →