Quizzes

Ethics Quiz: The Sentimental Cheer-Off

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

This is an “Awww!” story that rings some ethics alarms. Heartwarming but stupid. Kindness and courage marred by toxic empathy and a rejection of merit for “feelz.” I’m interested in where you come out on the The Sentimental Cheer-Off Affair.

14-year-old Jorgia Walls from Lawrenceville, Georgia, an eighth-grader, found herself the only remaining member of her cheerleading team for the Peachtree Ridge Youth Athletic Association. It was an eight-girl squad in early summer but had dwindled to just Jorgia by September. Ethics Alarm #1: That’s a teeny bit suspicious, don’t you think? It sounds like mutant of two Kirsten Dunst movies, “Drop Dead Gorgeous” and “Bring It On.” The AOL story casually says the strange exodus resulted from “the summer heat in Georgia” and “family factors.” Seven cheerleaders quitting the same squad? What a coinkydink…

Walls refused the options of joining the seventh-grade team or quitting the eighth grade squad herself, but instead decided (with the complicity of the cheerleading squad’s coach) to keep cheering on the eighth-grade football team all by herself. THIS reminds me of a memorable Monty Python segment where space aliens (who look like giant puddings) turn all of Earth’s tennis players into non-playing Scotsmen so the aliens can win Wimbledon. The sole un-transformed human tennis pro has to play himself by running around to both sides of the net. A single cheerleader is almost as silly but not as funny. (cont.)

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Ethics Quiz: The Fit Exhibitionist Disney World Guests

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In June 2025, TikTok fitness influencer [Full disclosure: I’m biased already] Nicole Arena attacked Walt Disney World after the theme park’s staff told her that she was not dressed appropriately for the family-friendly venue. She had to buy a cover-up T-shirt before they would allow her to get on a ride.

For some reason the controversy has surfaced again, which is good, because I love dress code ethics controversies. Most of my posts on the topic are here.

That’s a photo of the two at the park above, with Nicole’s full outfit in the inset. Apparently Disney’s employees didn’t raise any objections to her husband John Whitespot’s (!) outfit, which seems clearly discriminatory. He’s also a “fitness influencer”(see bias note above: Ditto, plus any full-grown man who wears his cap backwards is an idiot… ) and an inarticulate musclehead as well. “I couldn’t care less if someone thinks your outfit was inappropriate because we both know that neither one of us would feel comfortable or ok with anything that would expose you in any way,” John wrote, defending his wife.

Oh. What?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was it fair for Disney to force Nicole to “cover up”?

The most on-point of my past dress code posts is probably this one, about the fitness model who was denied boarding on an American Airlines flight because she was dressed like this:

That’s a bit more extreme than Nicole’s garb, but the dress code issue is always about slippery slopes. In that post I summed up the problem this way:

Ah, dress codes! They are conduct rules put in place by businesses and institutions because some people have no manners, sense of place, consideration for others or respect, and these codes never, ever, work in the long run, because some people have no manners, sense of place, consideration for others or respect. Once upon a time, children, adults going out into public dressed with taste and modesty as an expression of respect to others, including strangers, that they might meet. The Sixties destroyed this cultural consensus by questioning manners, decorum, conformity, dignity, and respect for others, especially anybody over thirty. Do your own thing! Let it all hang out! Today, a half century later,  people nonchalantly wear flip-flops to the opera and church, while the obese passenger sitting next to you on an airplane may be wearing a tank-top, and hasn’t  bathed in a week.

I think changing cultural norms may take the issue out of the realm of ethics into the generation gap quagmire, but I’m not certain, hence the quiz. The Disney episode also reminded me of this recent post.

Ethics Quiz: The Kitty Boo-Boo

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Cynthia ​Morgan, a school bus driver for Harford County Public Schools in Maryland for more than a decade, was alerted by an alarmed 10-year-old boy on board that there was an injured kitten by the side of the road. Yielding to the young student’s entreaties, Morgan stopped the bus on lightly-trafficked Heaps School Road in Pylesville and allowed the student to retrieve the kitten. The boy held the kitty in his lap until he was dropped off at school, whereupon the bus driver volunteered her lap for kitten-sitting for the rest of the route.

The incident got her fired. Morgan confirmed her dismissal to CBS News Baltimore and said she was devastated by the decision. The mother of the kitten rescuer says that her son would have been “devastated” if the cat has been left to fend for itself. “The fact that she was let go because of an act of kindness does really weigh on him,” she added. “That is unforgivable and cruel.”

Is it? Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was it ethical—responsible, fair, competent and reasonable—to fire the bus driver for permitting the emergency woulded kitten intervention?

The community, not to mention the influential feline population, is rallying behind Morgan. A petition on Change.org calls for the bus driver to be reinstated. “Over the years, Cynthia has become more than just a bus driver to our children; she is someone they look forward to seeing every morning and afternoon,” one parent wrote. “Her kind and warm nature makes the pupils feel safe and comfortable.This is not just my personal sentiment – countless parents and students share the same view.”

Another told reporters, “Every year at the beginning of the school year she buys every child on the bus school supplies. She buys them gifts for Christmas, every holiday, birthdays; she gives them birthday cards, all out of her own pocket.”

In a meeting with district officials, Morgan defended her actions and insisted that she had not put the student or those remaining in her bus in any jeopardy. For its part, the school system is staying the course. “Certification and decertification are not always based on a single factor but often involve consideration of multiple circumstances and requirements,” the school district said in a statement. “Student safety remains our top priority, and all certification decisions are made with that responsibility in mind.”

That sounds like lawyer-dictated CYA to me. Of course the district would default to an “it was the final straw” stance. Still, maybe it was. A letter from district Transportation Director Danielle Bedsaul cited “multiple incidents” involving Morgan, some including “concerns regarding inappropriate interactions with students.” Was buying students gifts and supplies among those “inappropriate actions”?

Let’s Play “Wait, Was That Racist or Not?”!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“Hi there, everyone! It’s time to play the exciting ethics game that’s sweeping America: “Wait, Was That Ethical or Unethical?”! As you know, contestants are asked to decide whether an ambiguous statement or action was racist or not!

“Are you ready, contestants? Then let’s play, “Wait, Was That Racist or Wasn’t It?”! Introduce our subject for Round I, Johnny!”

“Sure thing, Jack! Meet Dixie Walker! Dixie was a star baseball player who died in 1982. He won a batting championship and a runs-batted-in title, and he played in two World Series and four All-Star Games. He is most remembered, however, not for his impressive exploits on the baseball field but as the player who led the campaign to keep Jackie Robinson from joining the Brooklyn Dodgers and integrating the game.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The “Impossible” Wheel of Fortune Puzzle

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Devoted fans of the long-time TV game show “Wheel of Fortune “—“You know, morons!”— are enraged, as least based on the uproar on social media, because the puzzle board above foiled a competitor in the “bonus round,” costing him a car.

David Shepard of Atlanta, Georgia, was the unfortunate contestant. The pop culture media seems to think it’s relevant that he’s a cancer survivor. It isn’t. If the puzzle was unfair, then it was just as unfair whether he was cancer survivor, Sydney Sweeney, a convicted felon or Eric Swalwell. The amplified fury is another example of “toxic empathy,” as well as ethics ignorance.

But back to the issue at hand:

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is that puzzle unfair?

I can’t tell you the answer, because if you know it on your own, it will probably influence your answer to the quiz. According to TV Insider, fans of the show are screaming that “nobody uses that word” and that it was part of a conspiracy to avoid giving away a $50,000 Audi. I didn’t solve the puzzle in the time allowed ( I tried before my coffee) but I certainly know the word. “Have you ever heard that phrase? Let us know in the comments,” asks TV Insider.

Take me now, Lord.

And it’s a word, not a “phrase.”

On the side of the protesters as much as I can stand to be, that puzzle reminds me of the gag in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” where the mystical keeper of “The Bridge of Death” asks three easy questions of one of King Arthur’s Knights (“What is your name? What is your quest? What’s your favorite color?”) then replaces the color question with “What is the capital of Assyria?” for Sir Robin (who is magically flung into the gorge) and “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” for King Arthur.

Nonetheless, it is a real word, and the show never promised that its puzzles could all be solved by people who never progressed beyond Junior Scrabble…

Post Script: According to the AI bot I just asked, the average airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is about 24 miles per hour, or 11 meters per second. Of course, that answer could be completely made up, and I don’t care enough to check.

Ethics Quiz: Robo-Bathrooms?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The Big Apple’s Communist, anti-Semitic Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week (yes, that kind of intro is called “poisoning the well,” and I don’t care) announced that the first two high-tech modular bathrooms (of 17) that the city ordered earlier this year from Throne Labs are now on city streets. The rest of the restrooms will come online soon.

Wait, what? How does a bathroom come “online” ? This is how: The new public toilets can only be accessed by texting a number via a smartphone or by using special tap cards, which will be distributed by non-profit organizations in the community. There is strict 10-minute time limit on the things. A speaker inside the room will announce via bot that pooping-time is running out. Next the desperate user will hear in English and Spanish, “Attention: Your use time has expired! The door is opening now!” Then the door will slide open, exposing the user to the world. If someone doesn’t vacate the robo-bathroom at that point, Throne Labs personnel will get an alert to investigate, and if, necessary, call the police.

This system is allegedly necessary because NYC, which no longer observes the “broken window theory” and will not arrest someone for relieving themselves in public, decided that the public urination problem was becoming…serious. But how many public pissers have smart phones?

When I told a friend about this innovation today, he said, “There’s got to be something unethical about that.“

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is it?

Ethics Quiz: Sydney Sweeney (Again)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Sweeney, the shapely and bold young actress who already angered the Left with her jeans/genes ad that supposedly dog whistled white supremacy, is now getting attacked by the Mad Left for the video above. She’s objectifying female athletes, you see. Or something. Because women athletes have never used sexual attractiveness to promote themselves and their sports…

Hey, how did pro-golfer Paige Spiranac get in there? Away with you, Devil Woman!

Now where were we? Oh yes, Sydney Sweeney….

Here’s The Athletic:

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Comment of the Day: “Baseball Ethics Quiz: The Hug”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

If I have learned one thing writing Ethics Alarms since 2009 is that I don’t know anything, particularly regarding which posts will spark the most interest or the most lively debates. I never expect the usual volume of commentary on my baseball ethics posts (the first ethics post I ever wrote, on the old Ethics Scoreboard, was on baseball: Pete Rose), but yesterday’s quiz regarding Red Sox pitcher Peyton Tolle’s impulsive hug of an opposing player as he applied an inning ending tag spawned commentary that raised some aspects of the incident that I never considered.

Best of all was this Comment of the Day by AM Golden, on “Baseball Ethics Quiz: The Hug.”

[Oh: I’m from Old School Boston. I have always been uncomfortable with hugs of any kind, from any one, for any reason. I have learned over the years when to submit and also when taking the initiative in a hug is expected of me and therefore only polite.]

***

For transparency purposes, I have to disclose that I am a big fan of hugging.

It took a very long time for me to realize that not everyone likes to be hugged, though. Also, that there is a time and a place to hug people.

A workplace setting, for example, that wants to be taken seriously might want to discourage hugging among colleagues and, especially, between superiors and subordinates. An employee that wants to be taken seriously might decide that hugging people in the office undermines that goal. One never knows how another person may react to spontaneous hugging, after all. It might be welcomes, it might be spurned, it might give you an unwanted love interest or it might get you reprimanded by HR.

During a baseball game, a player is expected to be professional. Is it any different from being in a boardroom, a classroom or an examining room?

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Finally “The Ethicist” Has Found A Legitimate Topic Again: The Dementia Victim’s Spouse

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In fact, I’ll make this one an Ethics Quiz.

I don’t need to extensively quote the letter inspiring the column. A woman whose much older husband is now consumed with dementia and unable to function or recognize her asks if it would be ethical for her to seek an intimate relationship while remaining married to her husband and serving as his caretaker. “I have a lot of working years and child-rearing years ahead of me…and I find myself desiring physical and emotional intimacy with a partner,” “Name Withheld” writes.

No, it wasn’t Jill Biden. At least, I don’t think so…

If you have been reading my periodic posts involving Kwame Anthony Appiah’s ethics advice in the Times “The Ethicist” column, I’m sure you can guess his response. Hey girl, go for it! No harm no foul! Your man is a veg, and you’re stuck with him: why not live a little in the meantime?

Ok, that framing may be a bit unfair, but it’s still where Kwame comes out. Without saying he’s necessarily wrong, I have several problems with that knee-jerk response.

If that’s the verdict with one serious debilitating illness, why not others, like cancer or ALS…or, to reference something I’m very familiar with, alcoholism? Is the distinction that the demented spouse doesn’t know his or her spouse is having affairs? Hey Ethicist Man, what happened to “Ethics is what you do when no one’s looking”?

I do know that my wife frequently said that if I cheated on her if she became seriously ill, she would come back from the grave and haunt me like Tevye’s grandmother in “Fiddler on the Roof.” And she wasn’t kidding.

Then we have the reverse situation famously experienced by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She stepped down from SCOTUS in 2005 to care for her husband, John Jay O’Connor, after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. His condition progressed to the point that he required full-time care and he was moved into an assisted living facility in Phoenix. There his mind deteriorated to the point where he no longer remembered or recognized his wife, and he fell in love with a fellow Alzheimer’s patient. Justice O’Connor was supportive of the relationship, saying, at least in public, that she was thrilled and relieved that her husband was relaxed, happy, and comfortable in his new reality. Later, he became engaged to an ottoman.

(Okay, I was kidding about that last part. )

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Do you agree with “The Ethicist” that stepping out on your demented spouse is ethical?

Ethics Quiz: The “Incestuous” Candidacy

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Troy Jackson, the latest un-democratically selected candidate being offered to the public by Maine Democrats, is the Great White Male Hope for the unprincipled party as it tries to take over the U.S. Senate “by any means necessary.” You will recall that he became a necessary means after much-heralded lying, Nazi woman-abuser Graham Platner was revealed to be…well, a lying, Nazi woman-abuser. Oopsie!

Jackson has little in his record or character to suggest fitness to serve as a U.S. Senator, but what conservative critics are focusing their fire on is this, as the New York Post reports:

“Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson is in a long-term relationship with his high school sweetheart — who is also his second cousin, according to a new report. Jackson, 58, and Lana Pelletier share two adult sons and the same great-grandparents, according to Thursday’s report by independent journalist Steve Robinson, who notes that such relationships are both legal under state law and not uncommon in the rural North Maine Woods region, near the Canadian border.While Jackson, a onetime logger and the former president of the Maine State Senate, has described Pelletier as his wife in the past, locals tell Robinson the couple has never been legally married.

“Jackson grew up in the village of Allagash (population 237 as of the 2020 census) and attended nearby Fort Kent High School with Pelletier.According to geneological records unearthed by Robinson, Jackson’s maternal grandmother — Albertine Pelletier O’Leary — and Pelletier’s paternal grandfather — Louis A. Pelletier Sr. — were siblings, making Jackson’s mother, Colleen McBreairty, and Pelletier’s father, Louis Jr., first cousins.Since 1985, Maine law has prohibited marriages to an individual’s parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, or uncles.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of this Weekend:

Is this a legitimate campaign issue?

Legal Insurrection concludes, “All Maine Democrats had to do after Platner dropped out was find a normal person to take his place. It’s amazing that such a simple task was a challenge.” The conservative site reposts many contemptuous tweets, such as conservative pundit Jim Treacher’s…

OUT: Third Reich

IN: Second cousins

and Stephen L. Miller’s “The plan? We convince them to drop an abusive Nazi and then replace him with someone married to his own cousin.”

My view? I find this the kind of right wing “gotcha!”pearl-clutching that loses conservatives credibility. It’s mainly (Mainely?) Ick rather than ethics. He didn’t marry his cousin, he sort-of married his second cousin, which isn’t illegal incest in Maine or as far as I can find, anywhere else. Franklin D. Roosevely married and had children with his distant cousin (you’ll notice that they had the same last names). Thomas Jefferson and John Adams married third cousins; John and Abigail’s line was eventually stuffed with geniuses and high achievers. I have a long-time friend (well, she used to be a friend until Trump Derangement caused her to cut me off, and I was a particularly good and generous friend…grrrrrr!) who chose her first cousin as her third husband, which my late wife found disgusting. They were past the children stage; I found it interesting but hardly scandalous.