Family

Tide Commercial Reflections–with Acti-Lift!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This post isn’t going to have any additional ethical musings on the Tide commercials themselves, for I am sick to death of them, and almost as sick of arguing about them. What I have been thinking about instead is what to glean from the fact that an ethics critique of a 30 second laundry soap commercial has become the most viewed post on Ethics Alarms after fourteen months and about 1,100 posts, and has generated more debate than all but a few other issues.

Not that I much mind becoming the apparent ethics authority on Tide (with Acti-Lift!).  It’s a small niche, but at least it’s a niche. If you Google almost anything about the original commercial—“green shirt” and Tide, for example—Ethics Alarms is the first non-Tide site that gets listed. Still, with carefully considered ( and occasionally proofed) posts on politics, immigration, global warming, education, sex, law enforcement competing with it for attention, my ethics review of a TV commercial has attracted far more interest than any one of them.

Why? My thoughts: Continue reading →

The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2010 (Part 2)

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The final categories in the Worst of Ethics 2010. Coming up: The Best of Ethics, 2010.

(If you missed Part 1 of the Worst, go here.)

Worst Ethics Presentation: “Ethics in Politics: An evening with Former Governor Rod Blagojevich” (Presented to its students by Northwestern University) Continue reading →

Boseman v. Jarrell: A Gay Mother Tries to Use Legal Discrimination To Her Advantage

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

Julia Boseman and Melissa Jarrell were domestic partners in Wilmington, North Carolina, and always wanted to raise a child together. In May of 2000, they decided to make their dream a reality, and began the process of having a baby. They decided that Melissa would do the child-bearing, but Julia would be equally involved in the process in every other respect. They  chose an anonymous sperm donor together after researching and discussing various options. They jointly attended the medical session necessary to conceive their child and to administer proper prenatal care. Julia read to the gestating child in Melissa’s womb and played music for him; she also cared for Melissa during her pregnancy and was present at the birth. Melissa and Julia jointly chose their son’s first name, and agreed that he should have a hyphenated last name composed of their surnames. In every way, they behaved publicly and privately as the parents of the child, introducing him into their respective extended families.

But North Carolina refuses to recognize same-sex marriages, so in the eyes of the state, Julia was not legally a parent. To remedy this obstacle, she sought and received a court order adopting the child without severing her partner’s legally recognized parental rights. Officially, their child now had two, same-sex parents. Then the couple split acrimoniously, with the acrimony greatly magnified when Melissa sought to limit Julia’s contact with her son.

Julia sued, arguing that she was the child’s parent as much as Melissa. Continue reading →

Ethics Progress: America Kicks Its Kennedy Addiction

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For more than 60 years, descendants of tycoon/bootlegger/diplomat/influence-peddler Joseph P. Kennedy have held elite elected positions of power in the U.S. Government. The reason for this has not, in most cases, been the remarkable talents of the family members involved, nor their accomplishments, wit or demonstrated expertise on anything related to public affairs. Voters have elected the Kennedys because of their last name, because too many of them were lazy celebrity worshippers rather than responsible citizens. Continue reading →

Christmas: the Ethical Holiday

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Benjamin Franklin recognized the importance of regularly focusing one’s attention on ethical conduct rather than the usual non-ethical goals, needs, desires and impulses that occupy the thoughts of even the most virtuous among us. He suggested that every morning an individual should challenge himself to do good during the day. In the 21st century psychologists call this “priming,” a form of beneficial self-brain-washing that plants the seeds of future choices.

The Christmas season operates as an effective form of mass population priming, using tradition, lore, music, poetry, ritual, literature, art and entertainment to celebrate basic ethical virtues and exemplary conduct toward other human beings. Continue reading →

“Books for Christmas?!” A Christmas YouTube Ethics Lesson…For Parents

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Last year, a three-year old opened a Christmas present and told off his parents when he discovered a book instead of a toy. So amuses were the parents at their offspring’s absence of gratitude and manners that they put the video of his disappointed response on YouTube. This Christmas, the video has gone suddenly viral, and there are dozens of web posts all over cyberspace holding the little ingrate up as an exemplar of all that’s wrong with Christmas, children, America, materialism, and more. Many commenters are suggesting just desserts for this budding illiterate, like no Christmas presents at all, nothing but books as presents from now until puberty, or nothing but books by Dean Koonzt, Sarah Palin, or  Marcel Proust. That’ll teach him. Continue reading →

Unintended Consequences of Carelessly Written Ethics Rules Dept: Alaska Admits That Palin Was Victimized

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Once she had annoyed the Left and  sparked a media vendetta against her during the 2008 presidential campaign, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was a marked woman. She had made some serious ethical missteps in the handling of her ex-brother-in-law’s employment with the state, but most of the ethics complaints made against her—there were over twenty-five—were pure harassment, generated by political foes. Unfortunately, Alaska has previously responded to its long history of official corruption by establishing a system that allowed any citizen to file an ethics complaint against a governor and trigger an investigation, leaving the targeted official to foot the bill. Nothing in the procedure prevented frivolous or malicious complaints, and that’s what most of what the complaints against Palin were.

Now, as of December 22, the law has changed. Continue reading →

Lying to Mom

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The call was from my mother’s case worker at the hospital.

The night before, my mother, 89, had fallen in her apartment, the seventh fall in ten days and, like the others, a direct result of her stubborn refusal to use a cane or a walker despite her unsteadiness. This time she had not been able to dissuade me from taking her to the emergency room, where we both lingered until nearly 6 AM as she was X-rayed, CAT-scanned, and given a battery of tests. The staff felt she needed to be checked-in to stay for a couple of days, especially since she was hallucinating. I agreed, over Mom’s protests; it would also provide me some more time to figure out how to prepare my home for her to move in, at least temporarily. There is no way I am going to let her fall again.

Now the case worker was calling to tell me that my mother was resisting treatment. She wanted to go home, she said, and was physically resisting efforts to give her an M.R.I. Would I please come over and persuade her?

The hospital was only fifteen minutes away, and as I drove there, I pondered various strategies. With my mother, you get one shot. If your first argument doesn’t persuade her, nothing will. I could explain why the M.R.I. would help the doctors clear her for release, but that one could backfire if the test revealed something that in fact led to a longer stay. One ploy kept pushing itself to the front of the line: Continue reading →

Sigh. Cliff Lee Isn’t An Ethics Hero After All

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I just pulled a post designating new Philadelphia Phillies pitching ace Cliff Lee an Ethics Hero “because more than any free agent sports figure in recent history, he displayed  integrity, common sense, sound life priorities and courage by deciding where he wanted to ply his trade based on factors other than the size of his paycheck alone.” Sadly, Cliff’s honor is hereby revoked. As the details of the deal he has agreed to with the Phillies emerged this morning, it appears that he did not, as reported earlier, forgo the opportunity to make an additional $50 million dollars by signing with the New York Yankees or Texas Rangers. Arguably, he took the richest deal.

Sigh. Continue reading →

Tax Deal Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

A few brief ethics observations on the current tax deal machinations on Capitol Hill:

  • It was an unconscionable breach of responsibility for Congress to neglect to address this issue months ago. Not only would a timely decision whether to extend all, part or none of the Bush tax cuts have avoided the present uncertainty; it would have aided the recovery, as businesses and individuals would have known what the tax requirements would be, and could invest, spend or hire accordingly. The reason the Democrats waited, even when it was obvious that their House majority was a goner and that President Obama would be negotiating from weakness as a result, was pure, unadulterated cowardice. Congress was willing to withhold needed policy certainty, harming the economy and the public, so they wouldn’t have to take a stand before elections. Continue reading →