Etiquette and manners

Casey Anthony’s Lawyer is Pronounced Unethical By an Expert

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Jack Thompson knows incivility

Ah, the Casey Anthony trial continues to be the legal equivalent of “Jersey Shore,” or some other annoying TV reality show. In today’s episode: Hypocrisy! Revenge!  Irony! Abuse of process! Incivility!  And a special guest!

Cheney Mason, one of Casey Anthony’s defense attorneys, gave a raised middle finger (the international symbol of “I have nothing but contempt and utter disdain for you and your untoward words and conduct, so please have some form of unpleasant sexual intercourse with yourself!”) to a spectator who was verbally harassing Mason and others celebrating Anthony’s July 5 acquittal at a restaurant immediately after the trial.  Such public conduct by a lawyer is rude, undignified and inappropriate, but it is also rude, undignified and inappropriate for sea captains, puppeteers and plumbers, too. Incivility by a lawyer has to be especially egregious and must in some way threaten to undermine the administration of justice to raise the possibility of bar discipline, and flipping the bird to a jerk in a restaurant just plain doesn’t qualify. Now, a lawyer running all over town giving the finger to everyone for weeks on end, or a lawyer making the gesture to judges, opposing counsel or jury members in court would be very different matters. Such conduct would call into legitimate question a lawyer’s fitness to practice law. One such incident? No. I won’t speculate on what percentage of lawyers have given the upturned finger to someone during their careers, but you can.

Nevertheless, a Florida citizen decided to file an ethics complaint against Mason, which is his right. But this wasn’t just any Florida citizen; the complainant was Jack Thompson, a once nationally prominent attorney who managed the nearly impossible: he got himself disbarred for life in Florida for incivility, along with other ethical misconduct. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Central Bucks East High School

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

"Hello class! I'm your teacher, Miss Munroe, and as you know, you all disgust me. Now, I expect your full trust and respect this year. I am a professional, and my superiors and I agree that the fact that I hate you with all my soul won't change how I treat you, because hate doesn't affect how people treat each other in life. Wait...why are you all looking at me like that?"

Administrators at Central Bucks East High School in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, have decided to reinstate suspended teacher Natalie Munroe, who had made it very clear in several blog posts discovered by the school and her students last February that she detested her job and a great many of her students and their parents, spewing  diatribes that ridiculed specific students for their appearance, habits, speech and character.

There is no conceivable  justification for this. Munroe both deserved to be fired, and had to be fired, because she cannot be trusted to be fair, unbiased or diligent in educating students when she is so disgusted, annoyed and infuriated by them. “I hate your kid,” she wrote to the generic parents of her charges on her now discontinued blog.

“I hate your kid.” This is a smoking gun, but the school has chosen to ignore it.

How responsible is it for a school to entrust schoolchildren to the instruction of a teacher who admits that she hates them?  It is as responsible as letting a caregiver at a nursing home continue employment after writing, “I dislike old people.” As responsible as hiring a nurse who tells the hospital that  she is  nauseated by sick people. As responsible as entrusting an orphaned  child with an adoptive couple who announces that they can’t stand him.

Amazingly, Munroe has never denied that she meant what she wrote. Instead, her defense was this: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The Provocative T-Shirt Problem”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Rick Jones, whose excellent blog posts on ethics, academia, politics and life can be read here, at Curmudgeon Central, again delivers the Comment of the Day, on my post about the gay couple asked to hide an innocuous T-shirt message while visiting Dollywood.

“It strikes me that attempting to draw clear lines of demarcation in terms of either content or location is inherently fraught with peril. The best determinant may indeed be the Golden Rule. But that inevitably touches on intent. The purpose of a “marriage is so gay” t-shirt isn’t to “get in the face of” opponents of gay marriage; it’s to make a mildly humorous point about an issue without being strident.

“The guy who wore the “I’m a Muslim. Don’t Panic” t-shirt to the Ground Zero celebration after the killing of Osama bin Laden—not terribly clever, but not at all offensive, either.

I wouldn’t be offended by a t-shirt backing a political candidate I’d never support (I might have an indication of whether to engage in conversation with this person as we wait in the queue, but that’s another matter); I would be by a t-shirt defaming that same candidate: comparing him to Hitler, for example. Yes, intent matters. Continue reading →

The Provocative T-Shirt Problem

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Dress codes+grievance-mongers+freedom to be rude...oh, it's hopeless.

An ethical dilemma occurs when a clear ethical principle clashes with a strong non-ethical consideration. An ethical conflict occurs when multiple ethical principles suggest diametrically opposed results. The question of what is ethical conduct when it comes to wearing apparel bearing controversial messages has the elements of both a dilemma and a conflict.

                                                                                Welcome to Dollywood!

A same-sex couple visiting Dollywood Splash Country with friends and their children was told by a park gatekeeper that one of the women had to wear her T-shirt inside-out because its message—“Marriage is so gay”— “might be objectionable” to some visitors at the “family-friendly” park.

   <Sigh.> Continue reading →

Tardy and Biased Ethics Half-Hero: National Organization for Women (NOW)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Well, better late, confused, ineffective, biased and hypocritica than never, I guess.

Well, what do you know! The National Organization for Women, after sitting back and tolerating (or perhaps enjoying) comedian Bill Maher’s repeated use of misogynistic language to denigrate women as long as the women—Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin—were anti-abortion and conservatives, finally spoke up and followed their mission when Maher’s show, as it was bound to do, went too far even for NOW.

NOW issued a release condemning Maher and his guests on HBO’s “Real Time” for endorsing rape and sexual abuse, or “angry fucking,” as proper punishment for Bachmann for the crime of not seeing the world as Maher and guests Dan Savage and Marc Maron do. While discussing Michele Bachmann’s husband Marcus’s controversial gay Christian therapy clinic, the panel and Maher discussed “Mr. Bachmann’s” sexuality and marriage with Michele.  Marc Maron declared that he hoped Marcus “takes all that rage that comes from repression and denial and brings it into the bedroom. . . I hope he fucks her angrily, because that’s how I would, and I’ve thought about it.” Continue reading →

Rep. West’s E-mail: Not Sexist, But Uncivil and Unprofessional…Just Ask George Washington.

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The Father of Our Country has a verdict on Rep. West's e-mail

Rep. Allan West (R-Fla), a Tea Party rock star, shot off a wounded and combative e-mail to Rep. Debby Wasserman-Schultz after she made a speech on the House floor that attacked as “unbelievable” that a South Florida representative (That is, West) would back a plan that slashes health-care entitlements:

“The gentleman from Florida. who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries, unbelievable from a Member from South Florida [and that]…slashes Medicaid and critical investments essential to winning the future in favor of protecting tax breaks for Big Oil, millionaires, and companies who ship American jobs overseas.”

Wasserman-Schultz’s comments were, as many of her comments are, of questionable quality: why would it be unbelievable to her for a Representative to vote against the perceived narrow interests of his constituency for what he felt, rightly or wrongly, was the greater good? Is Wasserman-Schultz such a poll-driven hack that she can’t even comprehend why a member would support a measure out of conscience rather than electoral self-interest?  That quibble aside, however, there was nothing about the Democratic National Committee chair’s remarks that crossed the lines of accepted political speech.

West was apparently angered because she leveled her criticism after he had left the floor. Point taken: okay, maybe he was justified to take offense. He was not justified to send an e-mail, copied in to leadership of both parties, saying this, however: Continue reading →

A Tale of Two Heathers

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

All right, cooking your child doesn't mean you're a bad person.

Heather #1: Ethics Hero Heather Elliott, who saw two small boys locked in a car parked outside a Kroger store in Indianapolis. The temperature was in the 90s and climbing, and the boys looked red-faced and hot. One was screaming and crying, and banging at the closed window. Elliott decided to take action, and began to try to find a way to open the car doors.

Heather #2: Ethics Dunce Heather Query, 21-year-old mother of the two cooking boys, who arrived on the scene just as Heather #1 was trying to rescue her children. “How long were you in that store?’ Heather #1 asked #2.  “It’s 100 degrees outside.” ‘What do you care?” said Ethics Dunce Heather. “Mind your own business” When Ethics Hero Heather responded, “I’m just concerned about your kids. I’m just thinking about the safety of your kids,” Heather #2 attacked her, punching her in the face.

There’s gratitude for you. Continue reading →

Ethics, Stereotypes, and Holly Golightly

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

"Andy Hardy, the Asian Years"

A Bronx woman, Ursula Liang, has started a petition against Brooklyn Bridge Park’s “Movies With A View” series showing “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the 1961 Audrey Hepburn classic that gave us “Moon River” and one of actress Hepburn’s most endearing performances. Why? Well, the movie, which has long been popular for summer screenings in New York City and elsewhere, also contains a pre-political correctness performance by Mickey Rooney as Holly Golightly’s comic Japanese neighbor, “Mr. Yunioshi.”

Rooney’s performance, in my opinion, was cringe-worthy even in 1961, one of director Blake Edwards’ not uncommon excesses in vaudeville humor, placed in a context where it didn’t belong. It is a scar on an otherwise marvelous film, but there is nothing inherently wrong with comic stereotypes. Stereotypes are a staple of comedy, and have been forever; the question is whether a particular stereotype is cruel, gratuitous, harmful, or funny. Some stereotypes are cruel and funny. Continue reading →

Now THAT’s Bad Sportsmanship!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

After a 16-year-old Florida boy lost a black belt taekwondo match, he bowed to his opponent, shook his hand ...and then kicked him in the face. The blow knocked his surprised adversary’s front teeth out.

The sore loser was booked on a felony assault charge. The sore winner ended up in the hospital.

National taekwondo organizers are reportedly considering serious sanctions, including banning the suspect from the sport for life.

I think that’s a reasonable response.

Wanted, Desperately Needed, and Lacking: Professionals, Adults and Values in the Media

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

What? Is there something wrong?

There is not a lot to say about the graphic above, other than:

  1. It is crude.
  2. It is funny.
  3. It is intentional.
  4. It is inappropriate for a general audience newspaper
  5. A competent editor should have caught it, and
  6. The graphic artist needs a warning and a reprimand.

The media, its staff, celebrities and assorted vulgarians and boors seem to be determined to make public square America as uncivil as a locker room, as crude as a peep show, and as juvenile as a junior high school farting contest. Professionals, including USA Today editors and publishers, can either do their duty and discourage this intentional rudeness in their products and services, or shrug it away. Similarly, our culture needs to decide if we are going to just define our deviancy down some more, and accept gratuitous sexual innuendo that will gradually make the whole population into a bunch of snickering Beavises. Continue reading →