Popular Culture

On Hoaxes, Avatar, and More Late Night Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Hoax Update

  • Singer, model, television personality and inexplicable celebrity Tia Tequila announced in December that she was engaged to the heiress to the Johnson and Johnson fortune, Casey Johnson. The troubled Johnson turned up dead in squalid circumstances in January, prompting a grief-stricken online statement from Tia in which she spelled her beloved’s name wrong. Shortly after this, it was revealed that the engagement was a publicity stunt by Tequila, who barely knew Johnson. Fake romances for publicity purposes are as old as the Tudors, but this sort of thing further trivializes truth for an entire generation. Continue reading →

Late Night Ethics at NBC, and an Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Conan O’Brien did the only honorable, dignified thing left for him, which was to tell NBC to enjoy the rubble of its schedule, because he wasn’t going to be part of it. Continue reading →

Now For Something Completely Different: Conjoined Twin Ethical Dilemmas!

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I am officially mint-green with envy: Daniel Engber, who writes “The Explainer” column over at Slate, has written an informative, off-beat, thought-provoking column on just the sort of ethical/legal hypothetical I adore. The topic: If a Siamese twin commits murder, does his brother get punished too?

He does a terrific job. his essay also reminded me of a classic “Tales from the Crypt” episode involving a fictional pair of conjoined twins that one could imagine getting into such a dilemma.

Team Obama:Reinforcing National Apathy and Warped Priorities

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

President Obama is re-scheduling his State of the Union message to avoid preempting of the premiere of “Lost,” the cult sci-fi series that will be starting its final season.

Let me say that again so it sinks in: President Obama is re-scheduling his State of the Union message to avoid preempting of the premiere of “Lost.”

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Lies, Scams, Fiascos, and “Saved By the Bell”

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Some diverse ethics observations while living the lonely existence of a traveling ethics trainer… Continue reading →

Letterman’s Extortionist Tries A New Theory

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I suppose you have to give Joe Halderman’s lawyer some credit for coming up with a creative defense. If you don’t think too hard about it, it almost makes sense. In a variation on the “everybody does it” ethical rationalization, Halderman’s bid to avoid prison for hitting up David Letterman for two million dollars in hush money (Halderman’s ex-fiancé was one of  the female employees Letterman used in workplace harem) is based on a “Tiger does it” theory. Or to be accurate, “Tiger’s girlfriend did it.” Continue reading →

The 2009 Ethics Alarms Awards, Part 1: The Worst

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Welcome to the first annual Ethics Alarms Awards, recognizing the best and worst of ethics in 2009! These are the Worst; the Best is yet to come. Continue reading →

The Wrong Lesson from Tiger’s Fall

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

So that’s the lesson, is it?

As the year end lists almost unanimously “award” Tiger Woods the distinction of engineering the Scandal of the Year, pundits also seem to be nearing consensus on the lesson we should take from the golfer’s fall, which is: “Don’t make athletes and celebrities your role models or heroes. They are human beings like everyone else, and are guaranteed to disappoint you.”

Oh, I see…it’s all our fault. Continue reading →

Illinois: A Clash of Law, Ethics, Christmas and Festivus

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Any one with lingering doubts about whether law is capable of navigating the nuances of ethics should ponder the Christmas display at the Illinois State Capital, where an effort to avoid state support of religion has resulted in an offensive mockery of it that is inappropriate for any season.

The collision of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause (and the Supreme Court’s  broad interpretation of it) with the cultural, traditional. historical, artistic and commercial aspects of Christmas have created an annual fiasco that looks silly, irritates everyone, and accomplishes nothing constructive. It would be better to have no Christmas display at all, and that fact proves the limitation of law, and the subordination of ethics. Continue reading →

Well, It’s Better Than Senator Burris’s Version…

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[An Ethics Alarms reflection on the Christmas Eve Senate vote passing that esteemed body’s version of health care reform…in the tradition of “A Visit From Saint Nicholas,” because 1) you haven’t read enough parodies of that poem this year, 2) it seemed appropriate, but mostly 3) the version Sen. Burris read on the Senate floor was so terrible that I had to get its taste out of my mouth.]

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