A federal appeals court just struck down controversial the Federal Communications Commission policy on indecency, ruling that regulations barring the use of “fleeting expletives” on radio and TV were too vague and could inhibit free speech….even if that free speech was smutty.
Good. Continue reading
Sports ennoble us through the symbolic exploits of latter-day mythic heroes, who use their amazing skills and talents to exemplify courage, grace under adversity, loyalty, accountability, sacrifice, and, of course, sportsmanship.
Or so they say.
Sometimes it works out that way, but just as often an extraordinary athlete like LeBron James will choose to use his prominence to promote less attractive character traits, like greed, vanity, disloyalty, cruelty and boorishness. For some reason, the mega-millions LeBron was going to receive for fleeing Cleveland as an NBA free agent was not sufficient booty: the basketball star felt that “branding” required that he tease as many cities and franchises as possible, rub Cleveland’s loss in the faces of his previously worshipful fans in that city, and then announce his final choice of new employers in an ESPN TV special that embarrassed his sport and his species. James is not alone, of course; he has lots of company among college and professional athletes whose preening and selfishness make it impossible to use their names and “role model” in the same sentence.
But for the use of sport to warp ethical priorities, nothing quite matches the nauseating accolades being heaped on the late George Steinbrenner, whose ownership of the New York Yankees was a decades-long advertisement for the principle that the end justifies the means, and as long as you win, nothing else really matters. Continue reading
Bark-Off is a product you can see being pitched on cable TV almost any time of the day, a seemingly sinister gadget that allows you to stop your dog from barking, just like Adam Sandler does with his magic remote control in “Click.” The thing emits a high-pitched sound (“Not painful!” the commercial says) that only dogs can hear, and it distracts them enough to make them stop yapping.
As a dog owner, I find the Bark-Off vaguely creepy; I don’t like the idea off controlling the behavior of living creatures with electronic devices. Still, all the reviews of the product indicate that it isn’t painful and it does work for most dogs. Philosophically I object to it, because I think a dog owner should have more respect for his dog than to treat him like Christmas tree lights on a Clapper, but I can’t honestly say Bark-Off is unethical. Continue reading
Actor/director Mel Gibson has been in a series of nasty public and private battles with Oksana Grigorieva, whom he is currently fighting in court for custody of their love-child. As part of her assault on his fitness as a father, Grigorieva secretly taped one of their emotional arguments and released it to the tabloid media. On the tape, Gibson calls her a number of names that aren’t in a gentleman’s vocabulary, but the pièce de résistance is this charming sentiment:
“You look like a fucking pig in heat and if you get raped by a pack of niggers it will be your fault.”
Your question is: Which is more unethical? Mel’s ugly words or Oksana’s taping and releasing them?
[Pause for “Jeopardy” music…] Continue reading
We all know Vice President Biden’s mouth is only loosely connected to his brain. To some this is charming; to others it is irritating or scary. His tendency in unguarded moments to slip into vernacular hitherto regarded as undignified and inappropriate for high elected officials and unsuitable for family newspapers is part of a national crisis in civility. It is a symptom of it, but when our leaders give in to destructive cultural trends, they reinforce them. Continue reading
Applied to an international soccer match, the argument that players, fans and broadcasters should be broad-minded and tolerant of the peculiar conduct of various national groups is a good one—up to a point. The point is reached when a custom begins ruining the game for everyone else. The vuvuzelas–those small plastic horns that produce an ear-splitting atonal drone like a horde of cicadas— go well beyond that point at the World Cup, and in any other sports setting are the equivalent of racist taunts, 400 pound naked men, on-field trespassers and giant fart machines. Continue reading
“A fake coupon for a free bag of Doritos has gone viral, leaving consumers angry when they can’t cash it in, retailers holding the bag if they do redeem it and Frito-Lay dealing with damage to its image. The scam problem has increased in the past few weeks as more and more people e-mailed the coupon to one another. And though a $5 bag of chips may not sound like a big problem, Frito-Lay spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said the losses could end up in the multimillions: The dollar value of fake coupons submitted in recent weeks equaled 5 percent of Frito-Lay’s real coupon offerings for all of 2009, she said.”
Pretty funny, huh? Continue reading
This video is remarkable and disturbing.
Rep. Bob Etheridge, (D-N.C.) was walking down a Washington street when he was approached by a student holding a cell phone camera. The young man asked the Congressman about his views on President Obama’s agenda. Etheridge angrily demanded to know who the student was, tried to snatch the phone, and then assaulted and battered him. Continue reading
Has this ever happened to you?
There is someone who has needed a lot of help from me recently—rides, errands, a shoulder to cry on, and mostly time. I try to help out people when I can, especially if I am asked, because, obviously, it’s the right thing to do.
After a day in which my assistance to this individual was especially inconvenient and aggravating, essentially blowing a day that I could not afford to have blown, I learned about a personal situation facing me the next day that was going to be a problem, and realized that the person I had been assisting would be able to make my life a lot easier by granting a favor, and not a very difficult one. So I asked her. Continue reading
In this video, a grown man reaches over and intercepts a tossed baseball obviously intended to reach a specific little boy with a glove in an inning-ending gesture by New York Mets third baseman David Wright. The fan snags the ball just as it was about to land in the shocked kid’s glove, and then hands it to his own child.
There are rumors, unconfirmed, that after being berated by surrounding fans, he returned the ball. It doesn’t matter if he did or not: doing the right thing after you have been caught, shamed and threatened is not an ethical act, just a pragmatic one. The deficiency of values displayed by the act of taking a baseball from the child, and the stunning lack of kindness, empathy and fairness it shows, would be sufficient to dissuade me from hiring such an individual for a job, allowing him to marry my daughter, or associating with him socially. I think he should have been thrown out of the park.
Many ethical decisions require thought and reflection. Deciding that it’s wrong for an adult to take a gift from a child is not one of them.
Ethics Alarms 