Save Lindsay Lohan

It’s interesting, isn’t it? People who would never think of ridiculing the sick or mentally ill, who would never dream of condemning emotionally crippled individuals broken by dysfunctional families, will gleefully heap public abuse on a celebrity with the same problems. Why is this? A human being in trouble is a human being in trouble. It seems, however, that with the exception of little girls who fall down wells, the more people who know you are in crisis, the less sympathy you are likely to get.

Take, for example, the sad case of actress Lindsay Lohan, a talented young woman cursed with two narcissistic and exploitive parents. Continue reading

Is Gossip Unethical? Is the Pope Catholic?

A recent Wall Street Journal blog post included this surprising statement:

“Amid a rise in office gossip, researchers are disagreeing over whether it is fundamentally good or bad.”

Pardon? Dictionaries are unanimous in defining  gossip as “idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others.” That’s pretty clearly unethical, wouldn’t you say? Continue reading

More Ethics Lessons from Tiger and His Friends

The fact that a story is tabloid fodder doesn’t  mean  it can’t carry ethical wisdom along with its titillation content. As the number of alleged Woods mistresses continues to climb ( fifteen, the last I checked, but that was three hours ago), the Woods saga is casting light on more ethics issues than most. Such as… Continue reading

The Ethics of Ignorance and Apathy: Gore’s Million Degree Gaffe

I didn’t watch Al Gore when he appeared on the Tonight Show a couple weeks ago. What he said then while hobnobbing with Conan should be old news, but in fact it was no news at all, because virtually no news media gave it more than a passing mention. Then, by purest accident, I heard a talk-radio host ranting about a shocking statement Gore had made on the show, and I checked to see if he could possibly be quoting the former Vice-President correctly.

He was. Here is the exchange: Continue reading

Tiger Woods Ethics, Part II: Yes. It Matters

There are two main strains among the culturally corrosive arguments in support of Tiger Woods. One, discussed in Part I, is the “great athletes don’t need to be great human beings,” a contention that chooses to ignore the inescapable fact that they are paid to behave like great human beings, whether they are or not. While this argument is mostly obtuse, the second strain is the more ethically offensive. Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon embraced it with both arms in his defense of Woods entitled, “Some context on Tiger.” Its thesis: virtually all big-time athletes cheat on their wives, and if you had the opportunities and temptations they do, you’d cheat too. Translation: “It’s no big deal”: Continue reading

Tiger Woods Ethics, Part I: Betrayal’s Not for Heroes

I wasn’t planning on commenting on the Tiger Woods soap opera. Its ethical lessons seemed obvious, and merely xeroxed themes that I have, in the eyes of some, thumped to death. I do feel that the apparent glee with which some in the sports media have attacked Woods for revealing his true character is damning…of them. Golf’s Golden Child finally outed himself as a phony “good guy” and a classic case of the prodigy who won’t or can’t grow up, a man who has been carrying on multiple adulterous affairs while using his bottomless checkbook to cover his tracks. It seems that many reporters have long known that Tiger’s public image was a fraud, and  had chafed over the adulation heaped on him as they witnessed the golfer being mean, petty and boorish, often to them. Now these journalists feel it is “safe” to skewer Woods, and are doing so with gusto. Cowards. They were parties to a mass public deception, and their duty was to let us know Tiger was playing us for suckers when they knew it, not when his lies became National Enquirer headlines.

As for Tiger’s own conduct, however, I presumed most could see the ethics issues clearly. Then the apologists and rationalizers started writing their columns. Continue reading

Climategate’s Ethics Heroes, Villains and Dunces

The hacked East Anglia University computer files are slowly revealing the ethical values of more than just the scientists. They are also serving as accurate detector of integrity or the lack of it; bias or fairness, honesty, accountability, and courage.

Almost every day, a public statement, op-ed or news item exposes a hero, dunce, or villain or in the climate change debate, like those nifty reagents and black lights they use in the  “CSI” TV show and its 37 spin-offs. Here are some who have appeared thus far: Continue reading

Ethics Dunce: Marc Levin

Mark Levin is the resident screamer among conservative talk show hosts, and basic civility is clearly not on his menu, as he routinely cuts off any caller whose opinions vary from his by deriding the caller as an “idiot” or a “drone,” his pet word for liberals. One of Levin’s stunts is to broadcast presidential addresses, like President Obama’s speech last night on Afghanistan, with “commentary,” meaning that he delivers nasty asides, sarcastic quips and mocking rants while the President is speaking. Continue reading

Palin Alarm

The search for authentic leaders in America is frustrating. It shouldn’t be. All we ask is for is honesty and integrity. Continue reading

Ethics Dunces: NBC and the Today Show

NBC has announced that the couple that crashed the White House dinner, thus breaching national security as well as basic standards of honesty and manners, will appear on the Today Show. This adds one more reason to detest the two, who by combining the two things the news media can’t resist—the Obamas and reality show wannabes—have inspired the irresponsible news media to once again neglect genuinely important news events in favor of trivia. But the real ethics miscreants are NBC and the Today Show. Given two self-involved, irresponsible fools who break into the White House in order to become celebrities, the network and its morning show decide to make certain that their plan achieves its goal.  And if this motivates the next, slightly more unhinged would-be celebrity to do something more harmful to innocent people or the nation?  Hey, as long as the ratings are boffo, why should the Peacock Network worry about irrelevant issues like the President’s safety? Continue reading