Law & Law Enforcement

Theft, Disrespect and Retribution: the “Cook’s Source” Debacle

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

This is another example of how ethical insights can emerge from the most unlikely episodes, as one obscure website stole material from another, and ignited web vigilante justice on a grand scale.

Medieval  food expert and enthusiast Monica Gaudio learned from a friend that the e-magazine Cook’s Source had taken her online article about the origins of apple pie and reprinted it without her permission. Assuming it was an innocent error, Gaudio wrote the site and requested an apology, as well as a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism to make amends for what was a blatant copyright violation.

The managing editor at Cook’s Source, Judith Griggs, didn’t recognize a generous and reasonable offer when she saw one. Instead of proper contrition for taking Gaudio’s work without permission, Griggs decide to go for a new high in arrogant defiance, writing…

“Yes Monica, I do know about copyright laws. … But honestly Monica the web is considered ‘public domain’ and you should be happy we just didn’t ‘lift’ your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. … We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me!”

Seldom are so many ethics fouls packed into so few words. Note that: Continue reading →

Should a Prosecutor Be Lenient So A Rich Felon Can Keep His Big Bucks Job?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Good intentions, it is said, pave the road to Hell. It’s an especially direct road when the good intentions are those of a prosecutor who doesn’t have the skills or common sense to reach the correct decision to resolve a rather easy ethical conflict. An ethical conflict occurs when there are valid ethical arguments for diametrically opposed actions, and one must weigh the priorities, implications and likely results in order to make the most ethical choice. Mark Hurlbert, the district attorney for Eagle, Colorado, faced such a conflict, as prosecutors often do. He botched it royally, and that road he’s paving is going to reach far beyond Colorado. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Amazon

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“…Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions. Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable.”

—Amazon.com to the technology blog TechCrunch, in response to the bookseller’s offering the e-book, The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct by Philip R. Greaves II. Continue reading →

Ethics Advice to Joe Miller: At Least Lose With Integrity

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller, who helped sink his candidacy by stonewalling and dissembling about his misconduct while working as a municipal attorney, is now trying a Hail Mary law suit to stave off a write-in victory by current GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Miller has asked a judge to stop the state from making a judgment on a voter’s intentions if the voter wrote in something other than “Murkowski” or “Lisa Murkowski.” Alaska is about to start counting the more than 92,000 write-in ballots cast in last week’s election. The state counted about 27,000 absentee and early votes Tuesday, and at the end of the day, Miller remained 11,333 behind the write-in total.

The Alaska law covering write-ins states:

“A vote for a write-in candidate, other than a write-in vote for governor and lieutenant governor, shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided.”

Miller’s argument embraces the dubious theory that a misspelled name isn’t the name it’s intended to represent, even if it is obvious who the voter intended to vote for. Such an interpretation would make it disproportionally difficult for candidates not named “Smith,” “Brown,” or, naturally, “Miller” to prevail as write-in candidates, and nearly impossible for candidates named Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carl Yastrzemski, or, just to pick a name out of a hat, Lisa Murchowski. Or Murkowski. Whatever.

In other words, it is unfair, and an effort on Miller’s part to undermine the intent of the voters and the democratic process so he can achieve a dirty, unprincipled, undeserved victory. If  Tea Party enthusiasts like Sarah Palin, who promoted Miller’s misbegotten candidacy, believe in core American values as much as they claim to, they need to shut down Miller’s disgraceful law suit by informing him that he’s embarrassing himself, the movement, his party, and Alaska.

Again.

Happy Meal Ethics and the Heart Attack Grill

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The Heart Attack Grill, in Phoenix, Arizona, has a medical theme, in keeping with its name. Waitresses dress in skimpy nurses’ uniforms; customers, who come to gorge themselves on super-high calorie fare like Double Bypass Burgers and lard-fried french fries, wear hospital gowns over their clothes and are referred to as patients. The menu features no diet drinks. The new “model” for the Grill is Blair River, a former high school wrestler who stands 6 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 600 pounds (he’s also a financial adviser at the University of Phoenix.) River now has a $100-an-hour contract to pose for ads and TV commercials for the establishment, including a recent YouTube video which invites anyone over 350 pounds to eat for free. And, apparently, if you are over 500 pounds, they pay you. Continue reading →

The Worst Scam of All?

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

News Item:

“Millions of dollars meant to help survivors of the Nazi holocaust instead were stolen and fraudulently given to thousands of people who were not eligible for the funds, Justice Department officials said. Continue reading →

Texas Cheerleading Ethics: Cheer Your Rapist!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In the current issue of Sports Illustrated, Selena Roberts relates the tale of an ethical outrage, one that will makes your heart sink at the realization that there is so much incompetence, lack of common sense, cruelty and irresponsibility in the world…and that so much of it resides in high school administration.

A Silsbee (Texas) High School cheerleader, identified in the story only as “H.S.”,  had told police that she had been cornered in a room by three school athletes during a party, and sexually assaulted. Her screams were heard by others at the party, and charges were filed.  Roberts writes, “In a town whose population is 7,341 and whose high school football stadium seats 7,000…the alleged assault prompted two questions: How would it affect the girl? And how would it affect the team?” Continue reading →

What Gawker Calls Unethical: Poor Ex-Rep. Etheridge Was “Tricked” Into Assault

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The ethics-free web zone known as Gawker is indignant that it now appears that the young men roughed up by now-defeated North Carolina Democrat Rep. Bob Etheridge were G.O.P operatives stalking him in the hopes of catching him in a gaffe. Etheridge lost, in part because the video of him grabbing one of the young men in a bear hug was turned into an effective campaign ad by his adversary. He deserved to lose, as much as any candidate running in any race in the country.

Gawker apparently believes that under some circumstances it is no big deal for members of the U.S. Congress to commit assault and battery on the citizens they are supposed to serve, a view that Etheridge shares, but that Ethics Alarms does not.

Neither does Ken, over at Pope Hat, who makes a definitive argument that Etheridge has no excuse whatsoever. I can’t improve on it. You can read it here.

WordPress Ethics, Or How Offensive Obama T-Shirt Ads Ended Up On My Blog

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

WordPress supplies a versatile and useful product that is user-friendly (if I can manage it, believe me, it is user-friendly), inexpensive, and well-serviced. It also seems to be diligent about supplying regular information, which is especially important to me. So many companies, and especially the government, regularly surprise me with unpleasant, disrupting, or costly changes in what they provide that I only learn about by accident, or when they start causing me trouble.

A few months back, for example, Direct TV gave me no-charge charge access to HBO, just a couple of months after I had canceled it. There was no notice about this, and as a result, we didn’t watch the network at all for some time, since we didn’t know we were receiving the signal. It was puzzling that the access to HBO just appeared, and when it had hung around a few months, I decided to look at the bill, which we paid automatically. Now, I discovered, we were being charged for HBO, which I had just canceled.

When I called Direct TV, the representative apologized, took off the charge, credited me with a past months charge before I had realized what had happened, and removed HBO. He also gave me a long explanation about why this had happened, which boils down to this: when your service is interrupted (as it was several months ago; I was late with a bill payment), it is my responsibility to tell Direct TV what channels I was getting before the interruption, or it might just slip in premium channels without telling me when it reconnects my service. Is this written anywhere? No, it isn’t.

I no longer trust Direct TV.

I don’t trust the Transportation Security Administration, either. Last week, in the middle of a trip that involved several flights, I set off the gate alarm, as is my custom (I have a metal hip), and prepared for the ceremonial wanding. But this time, it wasn’t a wanding; oh no no no! It was a bona fide, full-body, rough massage feel-up that included a sprightly hello to my throat, rear-end, and naughty bits. In many cities, such stimulation would have cost me a pretty penny, though only if it were not performed by a large, heavy, middle-aged guy named Carl, as mine was. Yes, in rapid response to the underwear bomber, whose attempted act of terrorism was more than a year ago, TSA has now instituted new pat-down procedures designed to determine, among other things, what’s in your BVDs. There was no advance notice of this to flyers, of course, until I was actually at the feel-up point of no return, having made my meeting schedule and bought my non-refundable ticket. In fact, the new procedures had been instituted mid-day, after I had taken a flight including the usual game of Wand Me.

Now, back on the ground, I learn that some readers of my WordPress blog see a string of Google Ads in the text, ads triggered by key words and automatically generated. Continue reading →

Why Future Juan Williamses Will Be Fired, As George Mason Rolls Over In His Grave

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

College speech codes are the American Left’s special shame, and it the time for them to go the way of parietal hours and mandatory chapel attendance is overdue. There are monstrosities of thought control in schools across the nation, but those in state universities are especially offensive and ominous, since they are in slam-dunk defiance of the First Amendment prohibiting government restrictions on speech. As Barton Hinkle notes in an eye-opening piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, not only are state schools stomping on free speech, state schools dedicated to the legacy on the men who wrote the First Amendment are doing it. If there is anything more unethical  than educators stifling thought and the expression of it, that would be it. Continue reading →