Etiquette and manners

Flashback: “Ethics Test at McDonald’s”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Background: The McDonald’s beating and video story reminded me of another ethics essay arising out of a McDonald’s incident, one that I was personally involved in. This post first appeared on The Ethics Scoreboard in 2006, and reading it again, I realized it was one of the first times that I used the ethics alarms imagery that became the basis for this blog. The incident that inspired the essay still troubles me. I wish I could blame McDonald’s for the callousness that my 2006 experience and last week’s incident in Maryland exposed, but unfortunately, our problem relates to the Golden Rule, not the Golden Arches. Here is “Ethics Test at McDonald’s”:

Life gives ethics tests like pop quizzes. You often get no warning, and if you’re thinking about something else, you might not even realize the test is going on. Continue reading →

No-Hit Piñatas and the Killers of Childhood

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This is a no-hit piñata. Send it to Hell.

The latest device invented by childhood-fearing adults is the “no-hit piñata,”a new invention designed to make the ancient traditional child’s game less violent. Instead of hitting the colorful paper container with sticks to get at the candy and toys inside, the children pull strings, and the piñata opens non-violently.

What fun.

This is just another sally from the growing number of whimsy-challenged and anti-violence-addled parents and psychologists, who won’t rest until no child ever again picks up a stick to use as an imaginary gun, plays soldier, watches the Roadrunner push Wile E. Coyote off a cliff, or participates in a dodge ball game. Continue reading →

E-Mail Revelations: Prof. Ellen Lewin’s Unprofesssional Intolerance

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Ellen Lewin, a University of Iowa Professor of Anthropology and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies in the Department of Gender, was so enraged by an e-mail invitation sent to the entire campus by the student Republican group that she fired off an e-mail in reply that said, succinctly,

“FUCK YOU, REPUBLICANS!”

The young Republicans circulated the e-mail, and now many people  and groups are calling for her dismissal. The incident has raised more ethical questions than mere civility. Continue reading →

Terry Jones’ Next Irresponsible Protest: Legal? Sure. Stupid? Yes. Ethical? Of Course Not.

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

We have to permit the stupid demonstrations to protect the important ones.

The latest drama surrounding irresponsible publicity addict, Quran-burner and gonzo Islam-hater Rev. Terry Jones is his attempt to get a permit to demonstrate outside  the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan because, well, because it’s there, I guess.  Wayne County and Dearborn officials insist that he pay security costs that they estimate at about $46,000 before he will be allowed to incite more violence and riots overseas. These are a near certainty because a lot of people in other countries can’t understand why the United States lets its citizens say and demonstrate about any fool thing they want to. Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: Wonkette

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

That's right, Wonkette---GET HIM!!!

Wonkette the left-leaning political snark site, showed its true colors ( I flagged the site as ethically unbearable in a post six years ago, when it defended Dan Rather during “Memogate”) when it allowed editor Jack Steuf to post “satire” early this week  ridiculing Sarah Palin’s toddler son Trig, who is a Down Syndrome child. Entitled “Greatest Living American: A Children’s Treasury of Trig Crap On His Birthday,” the post contains sick-humor jokes about the 3-year-old ( After quoting from a Palin posted birthday poem for Trig referencing his dreams, Steuf snickers, “What’s he dreaming about? Nothing! He’s retarded!”) and proceeds to use the child as its target while demeaning Palin.  A sample:

“That strange man yelling unintelligibly at Sarah Palin? He’s merely a lowly shepherd proclaiming the birth of our savior. Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.) Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Actress Reese Witherspoon

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Him: "AchOO!" Her: "You disgust me!"

“He had a very runny nose. It wasn’t appealing. It wasn’t pleasant.”

Actress Reese Witherspoon, describing to MTV in decidedly negative terms her sex scenes with “Twilight” hearthrob  Robert Pattinson in the soon-to-be-released film “Watter for Elephants.”

I’ve always liked Witherspoon, but it just doesn’t get much meaner and unprofessional than this.  Love scenes and sex scenes are potentially embarrassing for any actor or actress, and film and stage professionals recognize this and scrupulously apply the Golden Rule. If “kissing and telling” is bad, “fake sex and telling” is worse, not merely a breach of trust and confidence, not simply unfair and disrespectful, but a stunning  violation of professional standards. It is also irresponsible for an actress to attempt to shatter a film’s premise before it even opens.

I don’t know what Pattinson did or said during the shoot that provoked the actress to go out of her way to publicly embarrass him, but good luck to Witherspoon the next time she has to play a love scene with an actor. The ironic part is that Pattinson was being thoroughly professional by gamely sticking to the shooting schedule that required him to portray passion when he was suffering from a bad cold….and this is the thanks he gets.Wow.

Reese Witherspoon’s stock in trade has been playing spunky, nice girls. It seems she’s a better actress than we ever realized.

Kobe Bryant’s Two-Word Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

"Fucking" + "faggot"= ?

In the heat of an NBA game, Los Angeles Laker star Kobe Bryant shouted a two-word epithet at a NBA ref, estimated to be the 9,675,987, 555, 321,005, 349,674, 021st time a player has insulted a ref in hoops since they started keeping count in 1973. Unfortunately, the two words were “fucking faggot.”

And it was picked up by the TV microphones.

In rapid succession, the Gay Lesbian Transgendered advocates were all over the NBA,  calling a foul; Bryant was apologizing, and the NBA was fining Bryant $100,000.

Ethics train wreck. It’s a train wreck because whatever happens at this point, the result has ethical problems, and the lesson is ethically muddled. There is no question at all that if the remark by Bryant hadn’t been picked up by the mics, there would be no issue, no controversy. But it was, which means that a comment intended for one individual (if that) became a national display of incivility (or worse.) Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Home As Billboard—“Ick!” or Unethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The Ad firm Adzookie will make their monthly mortgage payments for people willing to turn their homes into billboards. According to the company’s  CEO, it has received over 1,000 applications from people willing to have their houses turned into something like the eye-sore in the photo.

Your Ethics Quiz: Is this unethical conduct by the company, or merely disgusting, provoking our “Ick!” reflex?

For the Unethical side, consider: Continue reading →

Donald Trump, Birther

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Classy as ever, Donald!

Donald Trump, whose pseudo-entry into the Republican presidential sweepstakes has had the effect of making all the other candidates and near-candidates look classy by comparison, now is playing the despicable “birther” card. It figures. Everything about Trump’s career, personal life and properties, even his hairstyle, has been an exercise in bad taste.

This tactic plays to the lowest lights in the Republican party, about 70% of whose members harbor serious doubts about President Obama’s place of birth. This is not surprising: it is pure confirmation bias. Most Republicans don’t like Obama, and so don’t trust him. The confusion about his birth certificate feeds that distrust, and confirms it. It seems plausible to them that such an untrustworthy sort is hiding his true place of birth. To someone who trusts the President, this is not plausible. The slow-motion furor over his citizenship confirms their already formed beliefs too: that the Republicans are fools and racists. Continue reading →

Silly Job Interview Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

What does a silly interview tell you about your prospective employer?

A website called Glassceiling.com has been collecting strange job interview questions, and Fortune has reprinted some of them, offering guidance to job interviewees who might panic when asked such questions as this one, apparently part of the Goldman Sachs interview process:

“If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?”

The trick, say the experts, is not to lose your cool. Such questions are asked, the experts explain, not to elicit a correct answer, but rather to gauge an applicant’s poise, grace, reaction to stress, creativity and humor. Continue reading →