Quizzes

Ethics Quiz: The Strange Case of the Illegal Lawyer

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Hey Fred! Here comes your attorney!”

Sergio Garcia was brought across the Mexican border into California, at the age of 17 months, by his illegally immigrating parents. Thanks to the muddled and inconsistent enforcement of its immigration laws, Garcia graduated from Chico State University, a Florida law school and passed the California State Bar exam in July 2009., all while being in the country illegally. Now a special committee of the California Bar has recommended that he be licensed to practice in the state, but the California Supreme Court has reservations, and wants to read briefs on the issue. That issue is also the Ethics Alarms Quiz this weekend, and I must admit, it is a question I never thought would rise to status of a debate:

Should an illegal immigrant be allowed to practice law? Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Case of the Abandoned Prom Date

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

Today’s Ethics Quiz takes on the ethics of high school proms.

Oh, suck it up, girl!

Amanda Dougherty, a high school junior, had a prom date, tickets, an expensive dress and dreams of romance, glamor and life-long memories when her date, for reasons unrevealed to us, had to bale out of the big event too late for Amanda to find a replacement beau. She planned on attending stag, and was shocked when officials at Archbishop John Carroll High School told her she was not allowed to go without a date according to Archdiocese of Philadelphia policy. The office of Catholic Education explained that the school has “numerous dances and events throughout the year where dates are not required, but we view the prom as a special social event where a date is required to attend.”

“She’s been excited (about prom) for a couple of years,”  Jack Dougherty, Amanda’s father, told the CBS affiliate in Philly. “She went out around Christmas looking for her dress.” Amanda took a feminist line of attack. “For them to say we’re not good enough to go without a guy next to us, that’s kind of sickening,” she said.

Your Prom Season Ethics Quiz is this: Is the school heartless and overly rigid, or is its decision the right one? Continue reading →

Depressing Fun From CREW: “Are You More Ethical Than A Member of Congress?”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

And yet, it once was even worse...

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have a neat little feature on their website, an interactive survey entitled, “Are You More Ethical Than A Member of Congress?” It is well done, pointed, educational, and, if you hadn’t already figured out that the ethics on Capital Hill (and the character of the elected officials displaying them is beyond redemption, really depressing.

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that if you aren’t more ethical than a member of Congress, you are probably either in jail, or should be.

You can take the survey here.

 

Ethics Quiz: The Strange Case of Mitt Romney and the Posthumous Jewish Baptisms

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I’m not even sure what the question  should be, but let’s wade into this Twilight Zone dilemma.

"Your mission, Mr. Romney, should you accept it, is to save these dead Jews from vicarious baptism. Your head will explode in 8 seconds..."

Apparently the Mormon Church has been baptizing dead Jews for a  long time. You don’t have to be a Mormon for Mormons to want to save your soul (as I found out when I lived with a Mormon my freshman year in college), so this is undeniably an act of love, if a bit presumptuous. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints performs what they call “proxy baptisms” in order to save ancestors and others who weren’t baptized in life or who were baptized “without proper authority,” and such a baptism can even take place  after a person has died. When the live Jewish community discovered this was going on, and that even Holocaust victims like Anne Frank were getting baptized posthumously, it strenuously objected and negotiated a  baptism cease-fire of sorts, with the Mormons promising  to only proxy baptize dead Jews who were ancestors of Church members. The deal, however, fell through, and lot of deceased Jews are apparently being sent to Mormon Heaven, or somewhere, against their wills.

Thus Ellie Weisel has decided who is responsible for fixing this—whatever it is…Mitt Romney. Weisel has said that Romney should tell his church to cut it out, because, he says, “it’s scandalous.”

So the Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today is:

If the Mormons believe that baptizing dead Jews saves their souls, do they have any ethical obligation to stop doing it because the Jewish Community, Ellie Weisel, Mitt Romney or anyone else asks them to?

You know what? I don’t think so.I think if the Church made a deal it should keep its promise, but the deal aside: who does this hurt?

I also don’t think it is fair for Ellie Weisel to publicly demand that Mitt Romney throw his weight around in his Church to please another constituency.

Admittedly, however, the weirdness factor here is strong, and it may be blurring my reasoning powers. What do you think?

Ethics Quiz: Disclosing Information We have A Right To Know But May Not Want To Know

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Travel blogger Margie Goldsmith has a provocative post about a nightmare flight she experienced on American Airlines. You can read it here. The plane had one problem after another, all of which were

How much about what's happening in that cockpit do we really want to know?

described in terrifying detail by the captain, who cheerily informed them that:

  • The plane’s hydraulic system was leaking and had to be repaired
  • During the delay, the pilot was going to watch a video about how to take off from that airport, which was especially tricky.
  • The new plane the passengers were later moved to had been really foul-smelling, and needed to be completely cleaned and deodorized
  • The new plane’s hatch wouldn’t close properly, and..
  • They finally sealed it with duct tape, and were going to fly that way.

Goldsmith ends her story with this: “The next time I’m on a delayed flight and the Captain does not announce the reason for the hold-up, I think I’m going to be one happy passenger.”

Your Ethics Quiz for today poses this question:

“Is it more ethical for an airline pilot to detail all the problems an airplane is having in the interest of candor and full disclosure, or should he or she just deal with the problems and not increase passengers’ anxiety over matters that they neither understand nor can do anything about?” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Sydney’s Expressive Yearbook Photo

/ Jack Marshall / 88 Comments

My high school was never like this.

The photo above, believe it or not, was submitted to the Durango (Colorado) High School Yearbook as the senior photo of one Sydney Spies. The yearbook staff rejected it as inappropriate, and young Sydney is crying foul, saying that her First Amendment rights have been violated. Opinions differ on what message her photo was intended to convey. Suffice it to say that “Well, it’s late! I think I’ll go finish my algebra homework, read the Wall Street Journal and turn in!” is not one of the popular options.

Your Question in this week’s Ethics Quiz: Which party is in the wrong here? Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Case of the Fake But Accurate Social Security Card

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

A conundrum I have been asked to solve:

A mother is working to get her foreign adopted child a new copy of his Social Security card, which was lost. The child is a citizen since infancy, and a SS number has been assigned to him, but the process for a naturalized alien to get another is long and fraught with red tape, delays and frustration. So far, replacing the card has taken ten months, though it was supposed to take three. Now the son is waiting for the card to be issued. Social Security says it is waiting for final approval from Immigration, and Immigration says that there is a bottle neck, but not to worry.

Meanwhile, the boy has a standing job offer for a job that he is excited about and that would help family finances considerably. He cannot be processed without a Social Security card, however. And the job will not be held open forever.

For $250, a friend of the mother’s can get a counterfeit Social Security card with the son’s real number on it. He can have it in a week,

Your Question, in the last Ethics Quiz of 2011:

Granted that getting such a fake card is illegal, is it unethical?

None of the agencies involved dispute his citizenship, that he is enrolled in Social Security or that his number is valid. He has a document from Social Security that lists his number. The fake card would not assert anything that wasn’t true, except that he actually had the official card. He would be offering fake proof, but fake proof of something that is undisputed and true.

Is this one of the rare cases when conduct would be both illegal and ethical?

I’ll take your responses and update this with commentary later.

Ethics Quiz, Killer Pizza Edition: Can School “No-Tolerance” Be Dumber Than THIS?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I grant you: THIS is a scary pizza. What Nick Taylor had, however, was not.

Nicholas Taylor is 10-years-old and attends David Youree Elementary School in Smyrna, Tenn., 30 miles southeast of Nashville. He is currently serving a week-long sentence at “the quiet table” during lunch time and has had to endure gun safety lectures. What was his terrible offense?

He “threatened” other students at his lunch table with a piece of pizza that was shaped vaguely like a gun because of the bites that had been taken out of it. Yes, some pathetic, parent and culture-warped weenie of a fellow student complained to a teacher that Nick was making “threatening gestures” with his partially-eaten pizza-gun.  Taylor denied it. That meant he was lying. More punishment.

Your Ethics Quiz Question—and you better not get this one wrong!—is : Can political correctness “no-tolerance” idiocy in the schools get any worse than punishing a child for the shape of his pizza slice? Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: “Ethics Dunce: An Unknown Diner”…. Just Desserts?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

What would Jesus do if he got a crappy card like this instead of a fair tip?

The tale of the diner who left a pre-printed proselytizing card, disguised to look like a $10 bill, in lieu of a tip has attracted a surprising amount of interest on other sites. (The card began, “Some things are better than money…like your eternal salvation,” and went on to extol the benefits of religion.) Some of the comments raise ethical issues of their own. On Reddit, this interesting exchange occurred:

First Commenter: “I had a table of four leave me one of these and sixteen cents on their $40+ bill. The next time that they came in, which was the next Sunday after their church service they were completely ignored by all staff including managers. Forty minutes for their drinks, an hour and a half for their food, and a swift walk-by to throw the bill on their table was their service from then on.”

Second Commenter: What you SHOULD have done is this: Made their order, brought it to them, then, just as they were about to start eating, you should’ve taken the food away and replaced it with a piece of paper that said SOME THINGS ARE BETTER THAN FOOD…

Third Commenter: And did that make you feel good? Why not just refuse them service?

 First Commenter: Couldn’t actually refuse service for corporate bullshit reasons. This was a chain restaurant. Trust me we all wanted to tell them to GTFO and take their proselytizing bullshit with them. And yes it made every employee feel good to treat them like shit. Servers work for less than half of minimum wage, and a religious pamphlet does not help pay the bills.

Your Ethics Quiz to begin Thanksgiving week is a multiple choice: Which of the responses to the card is the ethical one?

Possible Answers:

1. Giving the group lousy and rude service.

2. Leaving the ironic message after taking awy their food.

3. Refusing them service.

4. None of them. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Apologies For A Sandusky Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

My uneasy relationship with the TSA continues.

Yes, I've sunk so low that I actually seek this out...

Today I was returning home from Atlanta, and its monster of an airport has one the cattle pen systems for going through security–a long, ling, line to all gates that keeps dividing and dividing, ultimately sending you down one of about 20 chutes to be scanned, stripped and yelled at. It is difficult to pick your chute, but in my case, it is crucial: Atlanta doesn’t have the full-body scanning devices in every line, and without it, I get gated, beeped, and sexually molested, thanks to my artificial hip.

It took ducking under a couple of barriers, but I finally got to an x-ray conveyor belt near a scanner, and had removed my laptop (separate bin) belt, jacket and shoes (not allowed in a bin in some cities, allowed in others) and lined them all up with my bag and brief case when an agent (none too politely) told me that they were closing that line, and directed me to another one, two lanes over. I lugged the three bins, bag and brief case over to that line, only to discover that it didn’t have a scanner.

That did it. I erupted at one of the agents, telling her that I did not care to be felt up at 8 in the morning, thanks, and had made a good faith effort to direct myself to a scanner, being foiled by the agent and by the fact that there are no signs warning people like me where a testicle massage is the only option.

“Why aren’t there signs?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There should be,” she said, as she helped me move my stuff to a scanner accessible line. “You should write the TSA and the airport.”

I laughed bitterly. “I’m sure that will do a lot of good. Do you all jsut like feeling up passengers? Is that the reason?”

A woman behind me laughed and said, “It sure seems like it!”

“Well, you know,” I said to her, “I hear Jerry Sandusky is trying to get a job as a screener!”

Her guffaw was interrupted by 7’8″ TSA agent, who said, loudly, “No he’s not, and I’m offended by that statement.”

My response, after a second’s consideration, was this: “I’m sorry I offended you. But I’m not apologizing.”

Your ethics quiz of the day: Should I have apologized? Continue reading →