Popular Culture

CBS: Ethics Corrupter

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Rehire Charlie Sheen?! What could CBS be thinking?

Barry Bonds goes on trial for perjury today. He is one of our society’s prime corrupters. Bonds cheated, lied, broke the law and helped drag major league baseball’s integrity  into the depths, all with the objectives of breaking records by players better and more honest than he, and becoming rich and famous. He accomplished all of these things, with no appreciable negative consequences; as of now, his career and life carry the lesson that cheating works, and anyone who lets things like rules, laws, or ethics stand in the way of success is a fool. Perhaps the trial will change that. I can dream.

Now CBS has stepped up to be a prime corporate ethics corrupter. Reportedly, it is negotiating with Charlie Sheen to get him back on the air, either in his now defunct show “Two and a Half Men,” or in something else. Continue reading →

And the Frontrunner for the 2011 “Eliot Spitzer Award for Outrageous Hypocrisy” is….

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Looks like this year's "Spitzie" is already in the bag!

Clark County (Las Vegas) Deputy District Attorney David Schubert!

From the Las Vegas Sun:

“Metro Police said chief Clark County Deputy District Attorney David Schubert was arrested in connection with drug charges Saturday night. Police spokesman Jay Rivera said Schubert was charged with possession of cocaine and booked into the Clark County Detention Center…
Police planned to release more information about Schubert’s arrest on Monday, Rivera said.

“Schubert recently prosecuted the high-profile drug cases involving Paris Hilton and pop singer Bruno Mars.”

Now THAT’s hypocrisy!

Misogyny Ethics: Bill Maher Calls Sarah Palin a “Dumb Twat” as Progressives Cheer and Feminists Fall Silent

/ Jack Marshall / 56 Comments

As long as we are on the topic of shunning and consequences (see previous post):

Is HBO comic/political commentator/arrogant jerk Bill Maher stooping to outright misogyny in his gratuitous ridicule of Sarah Palin going to have any consequences at all?

On his cable show “Real Time” this week, Maher’s usual name-calling took a sharp turn into the despicable with this:

MAHER: Oh, and did you hear this? [Laughs] Sarah Palin finally heard what happened in Japan……and she’s demanding that we invade “Tsunami.” I mean, she says, “These Tsunamians will not get away with this.”  Oh speaking of dumb twats, did you…

[Audience hilarity and applause]

MAHER: Oh, you’re right, yeah I let the cat out the bag on that one, huh folks?”

…………………………………………………………

That last line was a “pussy joke,” for those of you too genteel to appreciate Bill Maher’s “wit.” Continue reading →

Lesson of the Asian-Bashing UCLA Video: Shunning and Intolerance Work. Good.

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Alexandra Wallace...cultural critic, YouTube star, pariah, GONE

Alexandra Wallace, the UCLA student who created an obnoxious and offensive video stereotyping her Asian colleagues as gibberish-spouting boors,  announced that she was leaving the school as a result of “being ostracized” by “an entire community.”  Yes, I’d say that was the idea, and it is how cultures enforce its values. And it works.

Wallace picked the day of the Japanese tsunami to post her anti-Asian rant on YouTube, where it promptly went viral. It also made her an instant pariah on her campus, where over a third of all students are of Asian heritage, and the rest of them, unlike Alexandra, have at least a vague concept of mutual respect and decorum.

You can read a complete transcript of the three-minute diatribe here, but this shortened version gives a sense of what infuriated Asians, UCLA, and just about everyone else: Continue reading →

The SATs: Flat Learning Curve=Unfair Questions

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The secret to acing your SATs? Know your Kardashians!

After all the anger, debate and controversy in the Sixties over affirmative action and the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, with the case finally being made to the public’s satisfaction that including test questions  based on cultural references likely to be unfamiliar to African-Americans or lower-income students (such as, famously, questions about yachting) negatively affected their test scores, wouldn’t you think that it would have been thoroughly understood by the people who make up the SAT scores that questions with a cultural bias were inherently unfair and incompetent questions?

Here is the prompt for the essay question in the SAT test given to high school students across the country last week : Continue reading →

Unethical Crime Victim of the Month: Kamofie & Co.

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Next time, Lindsay, pick a classier store to rob.

Lindsay Lohan, in addition to having stunningly bad judgment, multiple addictions, lousy parents, sycophantic friends, and an army of paid enablers, also has rotten luck. When she walked out of a jewelry store wearing a $2,500 necklace, she picked an ethically dubious enterprise, Kamofie & Co., that may have  grossly over-priced the necklace, turning the shoplifting into grand theft. But that’s just the beginning.

Lohan, who is on probation and facing jail time for the incident, was caught on a surveillance tape in January as she strolled out of the store, with the unpurchased jewelry around her neck. Some establishments, recognizing the alleged thief as someone who is famous, troubled, and in need of some kindness, would have privately contacted the actress, accepted her (probably) false excuse that the act was inadvertent, and allowed her to return the item with involving the police.

Not Kamofie, however, which apparently saw the incident as an opportunity to make itself a household word. Continue reading →

I’m Worried About “The Good Wife”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Shape up, Alicia.

CBS’s “The Good Wife” seems to be getting more cavalier with its ethics breaches, a disappointing trend. Showing the ethical fudging that undoubtedly goes on behind the scenes at major law firms (on occasion) is appropriate; treating major violations with a shrug is not. I know it is tempting for the show to assume it has the intelligent legal TV show championship sewed up, since “the Defenders” is a joke and “Harry’s Law” is a disgrace, but it’s standards have been high, and it is dispiriting to see them flag with such missteps such as…

  • Prosecutorial misconduct casually brushed off as nothing. When Alicia asks why a videotape  is so much clearer than the one the prosecutor’s office turned over as evidence, she is told that what she received before was a copy of a copy of a copy–“just to mess with you.” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Who Deserved To Be Fired—Beck or The Duck?

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Tough quiz today, ethics fans. Be on your toes!

Our quiz for today: Who most deserved to be fired—Glenn Beck, Gilbert Gottfried (the voice of the Aflac duck),  neither, or both?

The Mad Prophet of Fox, Glenn Beck returned to his radio program with this reflection:

“I’m not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes. I’m not not saying that either… but there’s a message being sent. And that is, ‘Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.’ I’m just saying.”

Yes, Glenn Beck said that the devastation of Japan just may be a message from God. Continue reading →

The Bi-Partisan and Unethical Niggerizing of Political Discourse

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Marl Levin, virtuoso niggerizer

The ethics problem with the use of “nigger,” or “bitch,” or “fag,” or any of the other culturally disapproved denigrating labels for human beings belonging to particular groups, is not that they are insulting—adults should be able to  handle mere insults—but that they unfairly diminish the status of individuals, their character, opinions and deeds before they have had the opportunity to be judged on their merits. It isn’t the words, but the effect, in essence sticking a foot out to trip a runner at the beginning of the race—and the race may be a job, an election, a debate, an argument, or policy deliberations.

The No-Labels movement focuses on characterizations and civility, but these are far too vague as concepts to enforce culturally, and subject to easy manipulation for political ends. John Avlon, a leader of No-Labels, still calls politicians he disagrees with “wingnuts.” Why? Because, well, they are wingnuts! Just ask John. Niggerizing, however, goes well beyond labels, and fair people should reject it from either side of the political spectrum. It is a bully tactic, and it is a dishonest debating technique, completely delegitimizing an adversary before addressing his arguments, or giving them an objective hearing. Continue reading →

She-Hulk Legal Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

One of the most creative websites around, Law and the Multiverse, discusses the legal issues that would arise in a parallel existence in which super-heroes were real. The site finally delved into the topic of legal ethics a couple of weeks ago, and the post is both fun and informative on the issue of lawyer solicitation.

She-Hulk’s alter-ego, Jennifer Walters (who, unlike She-Hulk, is not green) is a practicing attorney. (So is Daredevil, and if anyone knows why they never formed a firm, let me know.) The post involves the propriety of She-Hulk’s soliciting legal business at the scene of a rescue. The issue is pretty straightforward. It does not, however, deal with the question of whether She-Hulk can ethically practice law when she is not Jennifer Walters. Does Walters’ license still apply to She-Hulk, who looks different, sounds different, thinks differently and has a different personality? The question is similar to the issue of whether Dr. Hyde can legally. practice medicine.

Oh well, maybe they’ll take that one up another time. You can read about She-Hulk’s legal ethics problem here.