The Internet

Stop Cruelty To Children—Or To Put It Another Way, Stop Jimmy Kimmel

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Bulletin to Jimmy Kimmel: Enough is enough, you sadistic jerk.

Also known as "Jimmy Kimmel Cruel!" and "Jimmy Kimmel Sadistic!"

Flush with his “success” of persuading his most irresponsible viewers to make their own children cry by lying to them about eating all their Halloween candy and then posting the videos of their kids’ emotional distress on YouTube, ABC late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has told the same warped people to traumatize their children again, this time by granting the kids the special treat of opening a Christmas gift early, but having a terrible gift (like a half-eaten sandwich) inside. The emotional reactions of the children thus deceived are also, per Kimmel’s directive, videotaped for posterity  to inspire mirth on the part of  his similarly warped viewers who don’t have children (and thank God for that), because, as we all know, disappointing kids at Christmastime is fun.

This has got to stop. It doesn’t matter if some, like Mediate’s Jon Bershad , think this is “the cruelest, funniest joke ever,” and others, like the Huffington Post’s reviewer, think the pranked children’s misery is “hilarious.” Children are not props for Jimmy Kimmel’s sadistic amusement, and parents who are willing to use their children this way, intentionally spoiling their Christmas anticipation for the entertainment of sadistic strangers, are, to be blunt, rotten, despicable, and untrustworthy parents. Something important—Compassion? Kindness? Empathy? Loyalty? Responsibility? Love? — is absent in their parental make-up, and that void is being cynically exploited by Kimmel, who has crossed the threshold from arrested adolescent to full-fledged villain. Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: The Florida Family Association

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

"Hey, wait---where are the terrorists?"

Organized bigotry is un-American, and organized bigotry under the banner of American values is misrepresentation. That’s what can be found on the Florida Family Association website here, as it simultaneously engages in several of Ethics Alarms’ most deplored conduct: bias, dishonestly accusing others of bias, bullying, boycotting, and worst of all having success at bullying and boycotting. I suppose I should add to that list making its readers stupid, because its arguments will do that too.

The Florida Family Association is offended by The Learning Channel’s latest reality show, “All-American Muslim,” which shows American citizens who happen to be Muslims pretty much living, acting and sounding like you and me, except when they are practicing their religion. I think it is, unlike most TLC series, an excellent idea. American attitudes toward  Muslims since September 11, 2001 are substantially based on ignorance, the kissing cousin of bigotry and the mother of fear. Learning more about American Muslims can only be beneficial to all, but The Florida Family Association views the program as a plot:

“The Learning Channel’s new show ‘All-American Muslim’ is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law.  The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Gary Chaplin

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Temper temper!!

When a job hunter sent a mass e-mail to 4000 potential employers and executive search firms in the United Kingdom, it was not the brightest move in the world.  It had one arguably useful result, however. The mass spamming inspired Gary Chaplin, an executive with one of the search firms, to demonstrate why developing the ethical habit of civility is not only the right thing to do and the smart thing to do, it is also the safe thing to do.

So annoyed was Chaplin by Manos Katsampoukas’s e-mail that he sent this in response:

“I think I speak for all 4000 people you have e-mailed when I say, “Thanks for your CV”—it’s nice to know you are taking this seriously and taking the time to make us feel special and unique. If you are not bright enough to learn how to ‘bcc’ and thus encourage cock-jockey retards to then spam everyone on the list…then please fuck off…you are too stupid to get a job, even in banking.”

Yes, this is bad.

Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Ken, Popehat Blogger

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"You'll find what you're looking for over at Popehat!"

In the spirit of “Miracle on 34th Street,” in which a Macy’s Santa famously sends a shopper to its rival department store Gimbels (R.I.P.), I’d like to direct readers to run, not walk, over to Popehat, the witty and cantankerous blog that often covers similar territory as Ethics Alarms. There Ken, a practicing lawyer, has penned as strong an essay on ethical issues as you are likely to encounter. Writing about an unethical marketer’s outrageous tactics that included posing as a lawyer to intimidate bloggers, Ken powerfully expounds on the use of bogus lawsuit threats to stifle free speech and opinion on the web, and how to fight it.

This has been a continuing theme of his for a long time, to the point of qualifying as a crusade. It is a worthy crusade, and Ken, along with Popehat, is performing a public service with posts such as this one, colorfully entitled, in the Popehat fashion, “Junk Science And Marketeers and Legal Threats, Oh My!”

Good work, Ken.

Ethics Dunce: Alec Baldwin…and Anybody That Sympathizes Or Defends Him In Any Way, Shape or Form

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"I'm a certified jerk, AND I play one on TV!"

Like Ashton Kutcher and Charlie Sheen, Alec Baldwin is a mega-jerk actor who plays mega-jerks superbly.  Designating him as an Ethics Dunce is like shooting fish in a barrel. Still, there is a material difference between portraying a fictional jerk that people laugh at and behaving like one in real life without apology. Baldwin’s stunt on an American Airlines flight yesterday and his subsequent comments about it mark him as a very special breed of self-entitled jerk, and should, in a culture that understands that admiring jerks is the equivalent of endorsing their warped values, lead to his decline in popularity.

We shall see.

Baldwin was quite properly tossed off an American Airlines flight when he repeatedly defied a flight attendant’s request, then command, that he turn off his iPad, on which he was playing a game. The actor, like the arrested development case he apparently is, retired with his game to the plane’s bathroom, slamming the door, and also verbally abused the attendants. Continue reading →

Bachmann and Elijah

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"Psst! My mom is gay and doesn't need fixing. What's 'gay'?"

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s views on homosexuality are antediluvian and ignorant. Almost anything that causes her discomfort as a result of her bigotry is to be fervently desired. Almost anything. One exception is a mother using her child as a weapon against her in a war he doesn’t understand.

In the video conveniently taken by a friend of 8-year-old Elijah’s mother and subsequently posted on YouTube, the child reluctantly, after much prodding, whispers “My mom is gay and she doesn’t need fixing” in the strange Minnesota Congresswoman’s ear. If it makes some people happy to believe that Elijah did this on his own, I suppose that’s a plus; this makes two plusses when added to Bachmann’s probable pique. Sorry, it’s not enough. I know it wouldn’t create a viral video if Elijah’s mother delivered her sentiment herself, but that’s just too bad: children are not puppets, props or trained terriers, and using them to deliver political messages is unethical—unfair, irresponsible, a breach of trust, and an abuse of power. Placing a child’s programmed act on Youtube, where it will haunt him forever, just adds to the offense,

Elijah’s message was inaccurate. His mother does need fixing, just not in the way Michele Bachmann thinks she does.

 

Ethics Quiz: The Conundrum of the Imaginary Editor

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

The above staff bio is featured on  VibrantNation.com, a website styled as “the leading online community for Baby Boomer women – the place where they connect and support each other on issues unique to life after 50.” The “composite staff member” known as Susan Lee Ward even has her by-line on some articles.

Your Ethics Quiz Question:

Is featuring an imaginary editor on a website unethical if it is fully disclosed? Or is it just batty?

The problem is one that has come up before: does disclosing something as an untruth cleanse it of its unethical characteristics? After all, there is no Susan Lee Ward, yet she is listed as an editor. That picture can’t possibly be her, because there is no “her.” Anyone who doesn’t read staff bios will in fact be deceived–and how often do you read website staff bios? Heck, people still write me angry e-mails saying that they don’t know who is writing all these ethics essays.

As usual, this comes down to a matter of trust. Are we less likely to trust a website that posts the bio and picture of a staff member who doesn’t exist? Or are we more likely to trust a website that tells us that it has invented an editor? OR are we less likely to trust a website that says it has invented a website for new-agey reasons that don’t really make much sense? When a publication uses fake editors, I wonder who or what they are trying to hide.

My reluctant call on this one: I don’t distrust the site because it has invented an editor. It has made a good faith effort to be transparent.

I distrust the site because inventing an editor for the stated reasons tells me that the real staff is insane.

[Thanks to Health News Review for finding this.]

Ethics Dunce: Sports Grid Blogger Dan Fogarty

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Civility is doomed. Civilization is doomed. Propriety is doomed.

What's the concerned father of the injured cheerleader thinking about? Why, what any cool dad would think about---how good her butt looks!

And Taylor Young, a cheerleader for the Michigan State Spartans, may well be doomed, as it is impossible to tell how badly her character, values and common sense have been warped by being brought up in a household containing her father, Charles. After Young took a hard fall during the halftime show in a game against Florida State, requiring her to receive medical attention (she was OK), her father posted this astounding Facebook comment, which, naturally, has gone viral:

“I’m glad to see your booty isn’t gettin big ….. no one likes a chick with a big butt ….. love you.”

Idiotic? Check. Sexist? Check. Insulting to women? Check. Embarrassing to his daughter? Double check. Demonstrating a stunning lack of understanding of the internet? Check. Displaying a disturbing tendency to sexualize his own daughter?

Check, and Yuck.

But to Dan Fogarty, writing on Sports Grid, this offensive post proves that Young is a “cool Dad,” and Young goes on to cite other “experts” who believe this is “quite possibly the funniest ‘Dad Moment’ in Facebook history.”

Really? Is this really the current state of the culture? A father makes salacious comments about his daughter’s “booty,” suggests that “chicks” without similar booty quality are unloved and unlovable, and that’s cool?

If Fogarty is in step with the culture and I’m not, 1) then American society is coarsening faster than I thought, and 2) which way to Mars?

My condolences to Taylor Young for the boorish conduct of her father, and if she sees nothing wrong with it either, she has my intense condolences—because she has been severely damaged.

As, perhaps, have we all, if Fogarty is right.

OK, So the Vengeful Tattoo Artist Story Is A Web Hoax. It’s Still A Great Ethics Topic.

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This comment was received on the post about the tattoo artist who tricked his cheating girlfriend into letting him draw a steaming pile of manure on her back:

"Never mind!" Wait, Emily---not so fast!

“You are all dumb. This is fake and I called it fake the first time I saw it. And guess what? The Smoking Gun did a little research and concluded that it is also fake. There appears to be no such person with the “victim’s” name in existence and nobody with the guy’s name. Further, the photo of the girl with the tattoo was first found as a submission on a blog about 18 months ago for “worst tattoo of the day”. And, further, they contacted the court in the jurisdiction where this allegedly happened and there has not been and is not any lawsuit filed with the names of either person nor about a tattoo like this. In other words, the story was made up on a website to generate hits and google ad generation (they’ve done this type of thing before).

Sort of makes all the arguments up above pointless.”

Since whoever this charming individual is didn’t include a name or a valid website, I deleted his comment, and since he had to be obnoxious while delivering this information, I’m not thanking him. But he was right, and his information was correct: the story is probably a hoax. The Smoking Gun did some digging, and exposes the deception here.

The commenter is also wrong, in several ways. Nobody is dumb. Web hoaxes are despicable and hard to catch, and especially hard for a site like Ethics Alarms to catch, a one-man, unfunded operation that is not a news source. I’m glad the commenter is puffed up with pride because he wasn’t fooled; the fact is, somebody somewhere refuses to believe every story, from moon landings to Elvis’s death. Sometimes they are right. I’m not impressed.

Mostly, however, he is wrong about the arguments generated by the story being pointless. Continue reading →

The SAT Cheating Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Over at Curmudgeon Central, Rick Jones appropriately eviscerates the Educational Testing Service for its role—the role being negligent facilitator–in an unfolding scandal involving students cheating on their SATs by having surrogates take their tests. 20 people have been arrested thus far as either the fake test-taker of the fraudulent scholar paying for said test-taker, and Rick’s guess that there must be a hundred times the ETS’s estimate of 150 incidents of cheating on the SATs  is extremely conservative. The problem is that the SATs are taken under incredibly lax  security, and Rick reveals something I never would have suspected: if someone is caught cheating after the SAT service investigates, he or she is given a refund and allowed to take the test again—and no college is ever notified! Rick writes…

“…in a just universe, the cretinous yahoos at the CB/ETS who decided on this policy would lose their jobs, have “unethical moron” branded into their foreheads, and be publicly pilloried. Preferably literally.” Continue reading →