The Internet

WordPress Ethics, Or How Offensive Obama T-Shirt Ads Ended Up On My Blog

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

WordPress supplies a versatile and useful product that is user-friendly (if I can manage it, believe me, it is user-friendly), inexpensive, and well-serviced. It also seems to be diligent about supplying regular information, which is especially important to me. So many companies, and especially the government, regularly surprise me with unpleasant, disrupting, or costly changes in what they provide that I only learn about by accident, or when they start causing me trouble.

A few months back, for example, Direct TV gave me no-charge charge access to HBO, just a couple of months after I had canceled it. There was no notice about this, and as a result, we didn’t watch the network at all for some time, since we didn’t know we were receiving the signal. It was puzzling that the access to HBO just appeared, and when it had hung around a few months, I decided to look at the bill, which we paid automatically. Now, I discovered, we were being charged for HBO, which I had just canceled.

When I called Direct TV, the representative apologized, took off the charge, credited me with a past months charge before I had realized what had happened, and removed HBO. He also gave me a long explanation about why this had happened, which boils down to this: when your service is interrupted (as it was several months ago; I was late with a bill payment), it is my responsibility to tell Direct TV what channels I was getting before the interruption, or it might just slip in premium channels without telling me when it reconnects my service. Is this written anywhere? No, it isn’t.

I no longer trust Direct TV.

I don’t trust the Transportation Security Administration, either. Last week, in the middle of a trip that involved several flights, I set off the gate alarm, as is my custom (I have a metal hip), and prepared for the ceremonial wanding. But this time, it wasn’t a wanding; oh no no no! It was a bona fide, full-body, rough massage feel-up that included a sprightly hello to my throat, rear-end, and naughty bits. In many cities, such stimulation would have cost me a pretty penny, though only if it were not performed by a large, heavy, middle-aged guy named Carl, as mine was. Yes, in rapid response to the underwear bomber, whose attempted act of terrorism was more than a year ago, TSA has now instituted new pat-down procedures designed to determine, among other things, what’s in your BVDs. There was no advance notice of this to flyers, of course, until I was actually at the feel-up point of no return, having made my meeting schedule and bought my non-refundable ticket. In fact, the new procedures had been instituted mid-day, after I had taken a flight including the usual game of Wand Me.

Now, back on the ground, I learn that some readers of my WordPress blog see a string of Google Ads in the text, ads triggered by key words and automatically generated. Continue reading →

Ethics Double Dunces in Ohio: McDonald’s Owner Paul Siegfried and Rep. Jean Schmidt (R, OH.)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The great state of Ohio gave us two Ethics Dunces last week, both related to the upcoming election, both Republicans, both outrageous. Your call as to who was worse; it’s awfully close:

1. Paul Siegfried, Ohio Ethics Dunce #1: The owner of several McDonald’s in northeastern Ohio  distributed Republican campaign material to his employees and added a threatening note to their paycheck envelope “suggesting” that three G.O.P. candidates receive their support. Continue reading →

Unethical Post of the Month: Jonah Goldberg

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

In his latest post on the National Review website, conservative blogger Jonah Goldberg wonders why the CIA hasn’t had the sense to assassinate WikiLeaks founder and current renegade leaker Julian Assange. That’s right: Goldberg believes that in the national interest (for Assange has gathered and leaked massive amounts of classified information relating to U.S. military operations), the U.S. government should murder an Australian citizen without due process, a trial, or anything approaching regard for law, ethics, and human rights.

I make it a rule, in the interest of civility and respect, to control the urge to sink to pure name-calling, but really: what an idiot. And a dangerous one. Continue reading →

Gawker’s Unethical Defense Of An Unethical Post

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Being slammed left, right and center, the unprincipled gossip site Gawker, which published a slimy kiss-and-tell account by an anonymous creep who shared a night of passion, if not as passionate as he expected, with Christine O’Donnell, issued its official defense. It can be summarized as “she’s a judgmental, hypocritical prude and she deserved it,” which is really a stand-in for the real motive, which does something like, “we’d publish the private secrets of our own grandmothers if it would get us more traffic.”

The hypocrisy argument is nonsense. Continue reading →

Schemes, Slander and Deception: The Most Unethical Maneuvers of Campaign 2010

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Well, I have to admit they were creative. And despicable.

2010’s most unethical maneuvers ran the gamut from lying to zombie exploitation, from false identity to extortion. Unfortunately, most of the worst stunts were pulled by or on behalf of Democrats; I say unfortunately because I try awfully hard to keep these kinds of lists in partisan balance. But the Democrats and their progressive fans were especially slimy this time around, and it it figures. When the going gets tough, the tough get unethical, and it is the Democrats who are facing ballot box carnage. They have been pushing the envelope, to say the least, in their campaign tactics, and I think it probably made their situation more dire rather than less.

Here, in reverse order of ethical outrageousness, are the Ten Most Unethical Maneuvers of Campaign 2010: Continue reading →

Christine O’Donnell Gets “Dominiaked”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

It is hard to find words to describe the despicable act of Dustin Dominiak, who wrote an odious kiss-and-tell piece entitled “I Had a One Night Stand With Christine O’Donnell.”

O’Donnell, the odd-ball, unqualified Republican candidate for the open U.S. Senate seat in Delaware, hardly possess the kind of potential for civilization-destroying evil that might support an argument for doing anything short of assassination to stop her ascent to power. Her candidacy is toast; she has become a political punch line, and has earned it. She has thoroughly proven her own unfitness to serve with a series of dumb comments, embarrassing campaign moments, and a ridiculous ad campaign. Still, she is a human being, and unlike another self-immolating Tea Party favorite, New York’s gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino, she seems to be a pretty nice one.

There can be no justification for Dominiak’s essay, which describes the kind of awkward social interaction between singles that must go on a million times any day of the week. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: George Clooney

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

An ethical challenge that all of us face now and then involves being present in a gathering when a host, a friend, a colleague or someone else makes an objectively bigoted or outrageously unfair and disrespectful  statement about a group that is not represented and thus unable to defend itself. At such times we all have a duty to confront and correct the speaker and condemn the sentiment, but the execution is difficult, and requires tact, knowledge, clarity and courage. Doing and saying nothing, however, gives the speaker and his slander support and tacit endorsement.

Fortunately, thanks to the magic of on-line video and George Clooney, we now have a lovely “How To” clip that demonstrates the right way to discharge one’s ethical duty in these awkward situations. Continue reading →

Accountability Follies: The B.C. Law Student’s Unethical Lament

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

An anonymous Boston College Law School student, soon to graduate, has requested a refund of his tuition  because he is unemployed and sees no legal job in his immediate future.  On a B.C. student website, he has posted an “open letter” to the school’s Dean: Continue reading →

Chevron, Environmentalists, Hoaxes, and the Ethics of Dialogue

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Chevron, the oil giant, rolled out a new ad campaign this week. It announced that Chevron agrees with critics and environmentally concerned Americans that it has critical responsibilities, such as reinvesting profits into socially responsible projects, seeking renewable energy sources, and taking extra steps to protect the environment. “We hear what people say about oil companies – that they should develop renewables, support communities, create jobs and protect the environment – and the fact is, we agree,” says Rhonda Zygocki, Chevron’s vice president of Policy, Government and Public Affairs, in the company’s press release. “This campaign demonstrates our values as a company and the greater value we provide in meeting the world’s demand for energy.  There is a lot of common ground on energy issues if we take the time to find it.” Continue reading →

Incompetence Follies: Fractured History For Virginia’s Fourth Graders

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Bob and Ray, the great deadpan comedy team that mastered the form of the comedy interview on radio, recordings and TV, once has a routine about a longshoreman without a high school diploma who had written a voluminous “History of the United States.”

“But the book is riddled with errors!” protested Bob Elliott, playing the interviewer. “For example, here on page 214, it says that Abraham Lincoln was born in 1926 in Bailey’s Mistake, Maine!”

“Well, it’s a big book with a lot of pages,” shrugged Ray Goulding, as the longshoreman-historian. “I’m sure I missed some typos. You can’t catch everything!”

I was reminded of the Bob and Ray skit when I learned that a history book used in 4th Grade in Virginia elementary schools, Our Virginia: Past and Present, teaches that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War, a discredited claim  often made by groups seeking to play down slavery’s role as a cause of the South’s rebellion. Continue reading →