The Internet

Catawba Valley Community College vs. FIRE, Free Speech and Fairness

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Wait a minute...YES! It's FIRE to the rescue!!

Will someone please  tell me what is going on with colleges and universities lately?

Has there been a collective nervous breakdown among administrators? Is the stress getting to be too much? As the walls close in, with institutions realizing that they are charging far too much for diplomas that neither signify knowledge nor enhance employability, are they abusing power in a futile effort to pretend they are in control of a deteriorating situation beyond their control? I don’t know, but thank heaven for the Foundation For Individual Rights in Education, whose mission of protecting students and academics from abusive restrictions on their rights of free though and expression on university campuses is more crucial than ever.

FIRE’s latest rescue mission was on behalf of Marc Bechtol, a student at Catawba Valley Community College in North Carolina. In June, the College announced that all students would receive a CVCC branded Debit Mastercard according to the institution’s partnership with Higher One, a financial services company. The debit card also serves as the official student ID, so there was no way to opt out of the arrangement. In order to activate his card, Bechtol and other students were required to supply their Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and student numbers. Bechtol smelled a rat, and he has a good nose: this arrangement may be legal, but it is unethical. The school is forcing students to do business with a for-profit entity that will have access to sensitive and personal data. Bechtol objected to CVCC and Higher One  marketing its checking accounts through emails to students, making claims that they would get their tuition refunds and Pell Grants faster if they opened Higher One accounts.  One such email had the subject line, “Want your refund? Activate your CVCC Onecard today!”

After Bechtol activated his own debit card, he said he received a marketing phone call from Orchard Bank, trying to get him to apply for a credit card—smoking gun evidence that his proprietary information, forced out of him by his college, was being sold to marketing firms. Annoyed, Bechtol sharply criticized CVCC’s unethical partnership with Higher One on the school’s Facebook page, writing “Did anyone else get a bunch of credit card spam in their CVCC inbox today? So, did CVCC sell our names to banks, or did Higher One? I think we should register CVCC’s address with every porn site known to man. Anyone know any good viruses to send them? …OK, maybe that would be a slight overreaction.”

One week after posting this, Bechtol was taken out of a class by the CVCC Executive Officer of Student Services and told that he would not be permitted to return. Continue reading →

The Korean President’s Dinner: President Obama, I Owe You This One

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Funny...you don't LOOK Japanese!

Having joined reflexive Obama-bashers by assuming the worst based on an unjustified reading of a leaked diplomatic cable and subsequently criticizing the White House for something it did not do, allow me to continue my contrition and repentance by flagging another example of the same phenomenon, also involving Asian diplomacy and equally unfair, being trumpeted by some of the same sources that led me astray.

The headlines: “ANOTHER WHITE HOUSE STAFF SCREWUP”  (Instapundit) …“Obama Honors South Korean President With Japanese Food” (The National Review)

Where did this come from? USA Today reported the fare for the upcoming  White House dinner honoring South Korean President Lee Myung Bak: Continue reading →

Unethical Website—and Readers— of the Month: The Spearhead

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Ironically, the site's typical reader is better described as "The Cement Head"

I don’t want to seem ungrateful: it is usually a welcome discovery when I find a popular website sending readers to Ethics Alarms, as has been the case the last two days with a site called The Spearhead. Nor do I have any ethical objections to The Spearhead’s theoretical mission, which is to stand against “misandry,” the mistreatment, cultural denigration of and discrimination against men. The phenomenon The Spearhead and its various bloggers rail against certainly exists in the U.S., as Ethics Alarms most forcefully pointed out after ABC’s Christiane Amanpour led a male-bashing roundtable on her Sunday show and did so as if she was having her guests name the state Capitals.

Unfortunately, the tone of most of the articles on The Spearhead is decidedly paranoid, misogynist or worse, echoing the dialogue in old movies and TV comedies in which rejected (and often repulsive) men would band together in a “Woman-Hater’s Club.” Its article (“Waitress Reacts to Insult With Online Lynch Mob”) that linked to Ethics Alarms, for example, weighing in on the Victoria Liss affair in which an aggrieved waitress used Facebook to invite Internet Avengers to heap abuse on a cheap and insulting customer but carelessly fingered the wrong man, took this from the episode:

“How many men would be so petty, so vindictive, and so morally depraved that they would launch a personal vendetta over a minor slight suffered in the course of a day’s work? Very few, obviously — such men would be instantly fired, and likely castigated by the courts (if not jailed) for harassment.”

Thus Victoria, in the view of the author, isn’t merely one inept Facebook user and an unusually vindictive waitress, but a typical representative of her gender and proof of the fairer sex’s inadequacies when compared to men. This is bigotry.  But the real ugliness arrived in the comments to the article, most of which heaped abuse on Liss and hatred on women generally, condemning the waitress not only for what she did, but for her appearance. Thanks to the site’s like/dislike feature, it was  possible to gauge which of the comments were representative of the majority. The verdict does not speak well for The Spearhead. Here is a representative sample:

  • “In today’s America, it is assured one will get undeserved shit, for speaking Truth.The customer spoke truth about her fatness, and now, the fat one is the one indignant…with a crowd of supporters defending her uncontrolled behavior. America = truth avoidance”

This endorsement of gratuitous rudeness and cruelty was approved of by the readership by a margin of 56 to 9. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Follow Up and Clarification On The Hiroshima Apology Cable: I Was Wrong, I Apologize…and More”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Rick Jones, whose blog is a constant source of information, provocation and thoughtfulness, generously contributes his analysis to the botched Hiroshima apology story in this Comment of the Day.  To summarize: here and elsewhere, a Wikileaks-released diplomatic cable from 2009  prompted a stampede of mostly conservative news sources to report that President Obama had suggested the possibility of apologizing for the atom bombing of Hiroshima in World War II.  I encountered the story, tracked it in several sources that have proven reliable in the past, and commented on it, critically. About 24 hours later, a friend with impeccable diplomatic credentials and inside information properly chastised me for taking the bait, and offered conclusive evidence that the cable had been misinterpreted. You might want to read my post of last night apologizing to readers and the President that also raises the issues that Rick addresses in his Comment of the Day. I have a follow-up comment at the end:

“While I admire your acceptance of responsibility for what appears to have been a misinterpretation, your commentary raises other issues. Continue reading →

A Tip For Victoria Liss—In Fact, Two: Read the Golden Rule, and Don’t Use The Internet For Revenge

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

The right Victoria Liss...I hope!

Victoria Liss was tending bar at Bimbo’s Cantina in Seattle last week, when a customer named Andrew Meyer not only refused to tip her on his $28 bill, he added insult to injury by scrawling on his credit card receipt that she “could stand to lose a few pounds.” Liss, outraged, decided to employ the full power of the internet against the unmannerly cad. She posted a picture of the receipt and the customer’s name, Andrew Meyer, on her Facebook page. 

Soon angry web-Furies were gathering to exact their revenge on Meyer, whom Liss called “yuppie scum.” Andrew Meyer’s photo and Facebook page were located and posted around the web like it was a Post Office wall. News sites, including the Seattle Weekly, the Stranger, Gawker and Jezabel, used the photograph. Soon Andrew Meyer was being flamed by thousands, and receiving vicious e-mails from strangers intent on carrying on Victoria Liss’s vendetta.

One problem: Liss had the wrong Andrew Meyer! The photo she posted was of a different Andrew Meyer who lived in Texas, not Washington, and it is his face and reputation she sent to web perdition. Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Two Year Report

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This month marks the second anniversary of Ethics Alarms, and by the end of the week, I will have posted its 2000th article. In that time, the blog has had…

  • Over 500,000 visits
  • 15,687 comments
  • 67, 487 spam comments

In addition, this month will have the most traffic of any month so far, twice as much as a year ago. And…

  • The most commented upon recent post was the contentious “Baby Emma” story, with 121 comments so far.
  • The posts that have been read the most are, yes,  “A Commercial for Liars: Tide..with Acti-lift!”, with “Texas Cheerleading Ethics: Cheer Your Rapist!” close behind. (Maybe I should use exclamation points more often.)
  • The current standings among recent commenters are, in order, tgt, Eric (Erik?) Monkman, Tim LeVier, Chase Martinez, Elizabeth, and Bill, finally pushing Mr. Fusion, who came, annoyed me, and vanished, off the charts.

This is as good a time as any to thank all of you who come here, and especially those who add your own perspective and opinions to the content. That was always the objective in starting the blog—on The Ethics Scoreboard, I usually felt like I was taking to myself— and you have responded magnificently, beyond my expectations. I am proud and honored that the discourse inspired by Ethics Alarms posts  is civil, pointed, well-written, perceptive, funny, and sometimes genuinely eloquent. Ethics is a continuing inquiry, and I have leaned much from all of you, even, and perhaps especially, when you tell me that I am, as my Dad liked to say, “talking through my hat.”

Again, thank you. I am more grateful than I can ever express.

And I will continue to work on those typos.

Ethics Quiz: “The Video Vigilante” of Oklahoma City

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

The Video Vigilante

Brian Bates, or “The Video Vigilante,” has spent 15 years exposing and documenting street prostitution in Oklahoma City. He lurks around an area of south Oklahoma City known for frequent prostitution, waits for a prostitute to get into the car of a customer and follows it to their destination. Then, videotape engaged, he opens the driver’s side door and shouts, “You’re busted, buddy!”

Then he places the video on YouTube’s John TV channel, Bates’ website, JohnTV.com, or his Facebook page or Twitter feed. He sometimes send the links to the guilty men’s spouses. Sometimes, knowing this, his prey beg for mercy, which is never forthcoming.

A two-part Ethics Quiz:

1. Is this admirable behavior? Ethical behavior? Continue reading →

Yes, I Am An Idiot. That Doesn’t Make It Ethical To Take Advantage of Me.

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I just fell for an online marketing scam, and am considering putting my brain up for auction on eBay in the hopes that it may net me enough to buy the complete DVD set of “Police Academy”. Failing that, I plan on devoting the rest of my days to exacting my revenge on the supposedly honest companies that were willing participants in my disgrace.

They caught me in a weak moment, surfing the net, having just lost a winnable game of Spider Solitaire. A screen popped up with the words,

“Congratulations, ALEXANDRIA! You have been selected to receive a free Apple iPad, Smartphone, or a thousand dollars worth of merchandise for taking a brief survey! It will only take a few minutes.”

As it turned out, there were two instances of deceit and three outright lies in this message, and I had several clear warnings that this was likely the case. For one thing, I wasn’t born yesterday. For another, I know my name isn’t ALEXANDRIA.

Yet I went to the next screen.  Why? Curiosity, which killed the cat; avarice, because the idea of getting something for nothing was appealing. Amnesia, because I’ve seen these things before.  Cockiness, as I was certain I would be able to determine whether this was a scam or not without losing much time or anything else. And, of course, abject stupidity, because I am an idiot. Continue reading →

Hank Williams, Jr.: Victim of a Political Correctness Mugging

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Wait---Hank Williams Jr. thinks Obama is like Jennifer Aniston?

On the Fox News morning couch-fest, country singer Hank Williams, Jr. had this exchange with the hosts:

HANK WILLIAMS: Remember the golf game?

    STEVE DOOCY: Boehner?

    HANK WILLIAMS: That was one of the biggest political mistakes ever.

    CO-HOSTS: Why?

    HANK WILLIAMS: That turned a lot of people off. You know, watching, you know, it just didn’t go over.

    GRETCHEN CARLSON: You mean when John Boehner played golf with President Obama?

    HANK WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah! Yeah. And Biden and Kasich, yeah. Uh-huh.

    GRETCHEN CARLSON: What did you not like about it? It seems to be a really pivotal moment for you.

    HANK WILLIAMS: Come on. Come on. It would be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu, OK?

It wasn’t OK, apparently. Headlines sprouted up like weeds claiming that Williams had “compared Obama to Hitler,” or “said Obama was like Hitler.” So because ESPN figured much of its audience would think that Hank Williams compared the President to Adolf Hitler, since the media was reporting his words that way, ESPN, that paragon of courage, fired Williams as the voice of Monday Night Football. No longer will his song introduce the festivities. Continue reading →

A Brief Rant Against Irresponsible Misinformation

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Bill Wambsganss makes an incredibly easy play in Game 5 of the 1920 World Series

I was watching baseball on television all day yesterday, and had to see more commercials than are good for me. It struck me that despite the advent of the so-called “Information Age,” commercials seem to be written by increasingly ignorant writers, and ads that contain blatantly incorrect facts make it to the air where they rot innocent young brains and delight badly-educated  old ones.

Since the average TV commercial must be seen by literally hundreds of writers, executives and technicians on its way to this carnage, what does this tell us? It tells us that the education system is just as bad as we feared, and that these irresponsible people don’t care enough about being accurate to do a 20 second Google Search so they won’t misinform people. Making such a search is called due diligence and responsible conduct. Not doing so is called lazy, negligent and unethical. Continue reading →