Professions

The Colin Kaepernick Tattoo Controversy: “Ick,” Not Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 68 Comments
How can he pass with a back that looks like that?

How can he pass with a back that looks like that?

The new star San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is tattooed all over. Does this mean that he is unqualified to be a leader, a role model, an ethical exemplar, as NFL quarterbacks are supposed to be? The Sporting News’ columnist David Whitley argued in a column that indeed Kaepernick’s tattoos do mean that, and as you would expect, the number of coherent points he could mount in support of that position equaled exactly zero. He did, however, give everyone a terrific example of how people who don’t comprehend ethics make what they think are ethical arguments.

His column is about ethics, because ethics is central to leadership. Whitley believes that Kaepernick’s tattoos undermine his ability to lead by compromising the values he represents to those who must follow him. And those values that tattoos undermine are??? Well, Whitely doesn’t really explain that. He says that tattoos on a quarterback send the wrong message because prisoners get tattoos in the Big House. This is a man who is hostage to cognitive dissonance. Presumably if Stephen Hawking or Barack Obama showed a tat, he’d be fine with Kaepernick’s decorations. When I was kid, it wasn’t prisoners but sailors who we identified with tattoos. I knew a Pearl Harbor survivor with a big one—this neither convinced me that he was a rotter instead of a hero or made me want to get a giant anchor needled into my arm. Popeye had a tattoo, and we all loved Popeye. He also ate spinach. We didn’t. Continue reading →

“Liz and Dick,” The Ethics Train Wreck Movie

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
The real producer behind "Liz and Dick"?

The real producer behind “Liz and Dick”?

There was another movie I watched on TV when I was too sick to move, think, or, in this case, change channels: “Liz and Dick,” the infamous Lifetime Movie Network bio-pic starring Lindsay Lohan. Was it lousy? Sure it was lousy; there was no way such a film could have been anything but lousy. Lousy cable movies, however, are hardly news or uncommon, especially on LMN. Indeed, this one was probably in the upper 25% for the outfit that regular creates starring vehicles for the likes of Erika Eleniak and Kellie Martin. This one, however, was an ethics train wreck quite apart from its aesthetic flaws.

The whole project begins with a lie, albeit a popular and elaborately supported one, which is that Elizabeth Taylor was anything special as an actress. She was not. Taylor parlayed uncommon beauty, public sympathy, and later sexual notoriety into mega-celebrity status that drooling male movie critics disgracefully interpreted as genuine talent. She had a thin, unpleasant and brittle voice that made her already limited range even more so. She couldn’t play comedy, and didn’t have the chops for hard drama either. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Day: Sesame Street

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“Sesame Workshop’s mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world over reach their highest potential. Kevin Clash has helped us achieve that mission for 28 years, and none of us, especially Kevin, want anything to divert our attention from our focus on serving as a leading educational organization. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding Kevin’s personal life has become a distraction that none of us want, and he has concluded that he can no longer be effective in his job and has resigned from Sesame Street. This is a sad day for Sesame Street.”

—— The producers of “Sesame Street,” announcing Kevin Clash’s resignation and the end of his close association with Elmo. A second man just accused Clash of molesting him when he was underage, and Clash’s original accuser, Sheldon Stephens, recently recanted his recantation of  his allegations.

“Goodbye, my friend.”

This ending was pre-ordained from the beginning of the scandal, and Clash’s guilt or innocence was and is irrelevant. Sesame Street’s duty is to Elmo and his fans, not Kevin Clash. “Innocent until proven guilty” also has no application. Clash, if nothing else, is guilty of not being innocent enough to be the voice of the most innocent Muppet on Sesame Street.

NOW You Tell Us? Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn) Is Not What What He Appeared To Be

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Unconfirmed photo of Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais caught out of his man suit.

In 2010, physician Scott DesJarnais ran to represent Tennessee’s Fourth Congressional District on a pro-life, anti-abortion platform, and won. He also ran as an honest, trustworthy, honorable individual, as all members of the U.S. House of Representatives ought to be.  He is an MD; integrity, intelligence and professional standards of conduct should be assumed. Little more than week after he was re-elected by Tennessee’s voters this year, however, the court records of his 2001 divorce were released. The Democratic Party in the state had fought to have them released before the election with the support of his ex-wife, but DesJarnais successfully persuaded a judge to wait—after all, why spoil a good surprise? When the transcripts were finally revealed, Tennesseans learned that their re-elected, pro-family Representative:

  • Supported his ex-wife’s two abortions before they were wed
  • Helped arrange abortions for a mistress and a patient he impregnated after they were married.
  • Had multiple sexual affairs with co-workers, subordinates and patients
  • Prescribed recreational pills for at least one of his sex partners
  • At one point, put a pistol barrel in his mouth for two hours and threatened suicide
  • Engaged in multiple actions that are violations of medical ethics, workplace ethics, and laws. Continue reading →

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Show Us The Way

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

“The operation was a success, but the patient died.”

“We had to destroy the village to save it.”

Massada. That worked out well too.

I’m sure the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union approves of these classic oxymoronic statements, because its members are currently patting themselves on the back for standing up to Hostess Brands, Inc and not giving an inch in contentious labor negotiations that had put them on the picket line. “I think we’re the first ones who have stood up and said, ‘We’re not going to let you get away with it,’” was the message the union’s resolve sent according to  Sue Tapley, the strike captain at the Biddeford, Maine Hostess plant. “You can fight them. You can shut them down.” “Unions have been losing power for years,” added  a striking worker outside of the same plant. “This is an exceptional case. If Hostess had been allowed to get away with what they’d been trying to do, other corporations would have lined up to try the same tactics. Hopefully, this will be an example to other companies not to break their unions.” Continue reading →

Welcome To The World Of “Expert Witnesses”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Then there’s the arrow that reads, “Willingness to say what we need to win the case.”

It doesn’t happen often, but it does pay well and can be interesting: occasionally I accept an engagement as a testifying ethics expert in a law suit. I have a rule, however, that surprisingly (or not) seems to come as a shock to many potential clients. They may be buying my opinion, but they are not necessarily buying the opinion they want. After I review the facts, documents and issues involved, I will render my opinion, but no promises. I won’t take a case unless I generally agree that the theory of the side hiring me is plausible, but after all the facts are in and I’ve done my analysis, if the case of the client whose lawyer hired me is weak, I will say so.

Strangely, some lawyers seem to have a problem with this, even when the expert insisting on integrity is an ethics expert. I am currently in settlement mode with a law firm that hired me to render my opinion regarding the billing submitted by another firm to the law firm’s client. Part of their argument, in claiming malpractice against the billing firm, was that its billing was excessive, unreasonable and inflated, a violation of  Rule 1.5 of the Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyers. I reviewed the billing statements, and they could have been inflated—some of the methods of stating who did what work was vague, and there sure was a lot of work billed on the matter, by an astounding number of lawyers—-but I could only assess that to a level of certainty sufficient to be certain in my own mind, much less state it under oath, if I could examine what all that work produced. This the law firm that hired me refused to produce, perhaps because the time it would have taken me to review it thoroughly would have been very expensive. But how could I decide whether the amount of money billed for a product was unreasonable without being able to determine what the product was? I couldn’t. Thus my written opinion stated what I could say honestly and with authority: based on the billing statements and the materials I was allowed to review,  I could only speculate on whether the billing was proper or not. It was possible. More than that, I could not say.

The law firm was not happy, although they never spoke to me about it. The firm just settled the case, and never paid me. (My very reasonable fee for services was $6,000, and if you’ve ever spent much time reviewing legal billing statements, you would know that they got off cheap.) You see, it didn’t really want an ethics expert, or an independent expert, or an honest, informed, professional analysis. They wanted a pre-determined opinion, bought with cash, delivered to specifications. Well, they won’t get that from me.

Welcome to the world of “expert witnesses.”

 

Meet the Grants!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Hmmm…I wonder who’ll play Jennifer in the Lifetime movie?

If this developing story from Seattle was a Lifetime Network movie, I would regard it as proof positive that LMN was running out of plausible plots. Since it appears to be real, I regard it as proof positive that life is running out of plausible plots.

Meet the Grants. They make fun couple David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell look like Mike and Carol Brady.  Described as a Seattle “power couple”, he’s a successful lawyer, and she’s city prosecutor. He’s also an accused serial rapist.

Dan Grant faces seven charges of raping Chinese women working as massage therapists, and another charge for first-degree burglary. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The chances that there is sufficient evidence to charge a Seattle lawyer as a serial rapist and that the evidence is nonetheless erroneous are slim, as are the chances that the police would charge the husband of a prosecutor without an air-tight case. Still, the word alleged needs to be attached to all of this. This isn’t just alleged, however: a recently released search warrant shows that prosecutor Jennifer Grant moved her husband’s SUV from in front of the massage parlor where he allegedly raped one of the Chinese women to a location far away from both the parlor and the Grants’ home. Gee, thanks, honey! Now why would she do that? The Good Wife Prosecutor swears that she took no evidence from the SUV except a garage key card, but a search warrant affidavit indicates that police believed that the vehicle contained a knife, condom wrappers, phony police ID and DNA. Continue reading →

Gen. Allen, Lockheed, John Edwards, Restraint Bias,and Further Musings on the Petraeus-Broadwell Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 62 Comments

Run away!

In no particular order:

  • In a tack that is being duplicated by other commentators on the left, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow essentially pronounced the scandal as much ado about nothing (Columnist E.J. Dionne dismissively referred to Petraeus’s affair as his “little secret”). See, as long as an incident involves sex, the Left’s default position is that it can’t be that bad. Maddow mocked the actions of Jill Kelley, the woman who Broadwell threatened and who alerted the FBI, saying, “Who contacts the FBI because of threatening e-mails? If I did that, they would have to set up a special division just for me.” Ha ha.  How many of your threatening e-mails credibly suggested that the head of an intelligence agency was having an illicit affair with an unstable wacko, Rachel? Kelley did the responsible, intelligent thing given the possible national security implications. But it’s certainly good to know that you wouldn’t…because it’s only sex, of course.
  • Other pundits are complaining that the FBI became involved when what Petraeus did “wasn’t a crime.”  Yes,  it’s the “It’s legal” rationalization. Why people who can’t comprehend that dangerous, destructive, serious misconduct can occur without breaking any laws are allowed to write newspaper columns, I’ll never understand. Petraeus’s affair was a violation of the ethics rules, in an intelligence agency with major responsibilities in national security. That is serious, inherently dangerous, and easily could have led to security breaches that were illegal. If a leader materially, knowingly and publicly violates an ethics rule, he cannot lead. This is why Petraeus, who understands this, resigned, despite the certainty that the Rachel Maddows of the media would have been happy to shrug off his actions as “no big deal.” …because it’s only sex, and “it’s legal.”
  • Kelley still boarded the ethics train wreck, not because of her actions in response to Broadwell’s threat, but in light of the revelation that she was maintaining a hot e-mail relationship with Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The FBI has uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of primarily e-mails containing “potentially inappropriate” communication between Allen and Kelley. Wait, what? Between 20,000 and 30,000 pages? What the hell is going on with our generals? This is obsessive, unhealthy behavior, even if he’s just writing her limericks and recipes. Something is serious amiss in the ethical culture of the U.S. military leadership Continue reading →

More Advice Column Malpractice: “Dear Prudence,” Elder Abuse and Voter Fraud

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I have to wonder about the values, ethics and trustworthiness of any publication that employs an advice columnist as deeply incompetent and unethical as Emily Yoffe, a.k.a “Dear Prudence.” I’m sure that I would be compelled to correct her regularly if I read her responses with any frequency, which is one of the reasons I don’t read the column. 2011 Ethics Alarms Commenter of the Year tgt just flagged this horrific example of Emily’s craft, and correctly guessed my reaction, writing, “get ready to facepalm.”  Now that my visage is permanently concave, allow me to retort.

The query comes from a woman whose mother has filled in absentee ballots for her parents, voting her own preferences and not consulting them. Worse, the grandmother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, is a life-long partisan of the party her daughter voted against on her behalf.  The questioner asks “Prudence,” “Should I attempt to intervene in some way?” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Vs. Unethical Website and Scammer: Marc Randazza Takes Aim At The Contemptible “Is Anybody Down” and “The Takedown Lawyer”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Go get em, Marc!

First Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza is a genuine Ethics Hero. I speak from personal experience: when a cyber-bully was trying to use a threatened libel lawsuit to force me to remove a posted opinion he didn’t like, Marc (thoughtfully referred by Ken at Popehat), generously offered his time and advice…and Marc does this all the time. Right now he has a different mission: exposing a revolting cyberscam and hounding the perpetrators into retreat. His target is the website “Is Anybody Down,” and a more disgusting web enterprise would be hard to imagine, and its parasitic creation, the “Takedown Lawyer.”

I’ll let Marc explain why he has “Is Anybody Down” on his hit list:

“Here’s their business plan:

  • Step one: Register the domain name “isanybodydown.com”
  • Step two: Get ahold of nude photos of people who never consented to having their photos published.
  • Step three:Publish them, along with their names, home towns, and links to their facebook profiles.

So now how do you “profit?” Well, openly saying “I’ll take down the photo for $250,” would probably create some legal issues for you. So, instead, you create a fake lawyer persona and say “I am an internet lawyer, named David Blade, III, and I’ll get your pics down for $250.” Continue reading →