U.S. Society

A Close Call at Integrity Junction

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

 

What might have been...

It’s so easy to violate your integrity. It also can become a habit. I just had a close call at Integrity Junction myself, and, of all things, another blogger saved me. In part, this account is to thank him.

It was inevitable that the daily task of highlighting and discussing ethical issues and the ethical choices of others would generate some backlash, and it certainly has. As a lawyer, I know where most of the landmines are, but the danger of a deep-pockets corporation that has been properly chastised budgeting enough money to ruin you with a spurious lawsuit is always a possibility. In eight years of writing online about ethics, I have only been successfully bullied into taking down one post, that one regarding a viatical settlement company that was even more sleazy than the industry generally. The article relied heavily on direct quotes from the company’s own website, yet I received a stern “cease and desist” letter from the company’s toady of a general counsel, accusing me of libel and defamation.

2005 was a tough year at ProEthics, which was just getting established; the mortgage was a monthly challenge, and we had several financial emergencies. It was no time to spit in the wind, especially in defense of a web post that would probably get a total readership approaching the roster of a weekend bowling team. I pulled the article. It has bothered me ever since. But as a remarkable number of commenters on the “Mike McQueary and Me” post seem to be unable to comprehend, real world, pragmatic and yes, selfish considerations do factor into ethical decisions. The trick is to know how to do the factoring, and even more important, to have prepared yourself to do the analysis quickly when the time comes.

I recently received another cease-and-desist letter, demanding that I take down a post I wrote a few months ago, based on an AP story about the mismanagement of several 9-11 charities. One of the operators of the charities mentioned in the story and in my post has hired a reputation-cleaning outfit that is doing all of the dubious tasks such companies do, including complaining, harassing and threatening websites and blogs that include negative opinions or facts about their clients. The hit-group assigned to me has added bogus comments to the post (failing to mention that their opinions were bought and paid for), and repeatedly sent me ominous e-mails hinting at impending legal action. Continue reading →

Ethics Mystery: How Can Penn State Let McQueary Coach the Team For Saturday’s Game?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

WHAT???

It is almost too weird to contemplate. Penn State has fired both its president and football coach Joe Paterno over their failure to take necessary measures to protect young boys who they knew were targets of what appears, and appeared to be, a serial child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Paterno was fired yesterday specifically to eliminate the pall that would be cast over all Penn State activities, including this Saturday’s game, if he were to continue as coach, and to make sure that the university didn’t project a “business as usual” attitude by allowing its community to blithely cheer Paterno’s team as if a child molesting scandal could be brushed aside for a weekend of fun and games.

And yet Penn State plans to have Mike McQueary coach the team on Saturday, rendering all of this incoherent. McQueary was the one who witnessed the act of sexual assault that triggered the whole scandal. He reported it to Paterno, but 1) didn”t stop it when he had the chance, and 2) did nothing to make certain that Sandusky’s criminal conduct was being properly handled afterwards. His presence as coach on Saturday all but eliminates whatever message Penn State intended to send by firing Paterno. The bottom line will be that the team will still be coached by an individual who didn’t do everything he could  and should have done to protect young boys from a predator. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Different Angle,” a college student and victim of child abuse, has, appropriately enough, a different angle on the Paterno/Penn State/ Sandusky scandal, and it provides useful and provocative perspective. I’ll let him have his say, as it is extraordinarily well argued, and save my comments for the end. I think he is compassionate, generous, thorough, thoughtful, and wrong. But first, here is his Comment of the Day on  “Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students.”

“As a current college student, prior victim of child molestation, and generally reasonable person, I feel inclined to give my two cents. Having read the grand jury report personally, I am shaken. Unless you are familiar with the shame and humiliation of a situation like this–even if you are familiar–the sheer quantity of these attacks… beyond words. Had any Penn State staff understood the thoughts running through this man’s mind, this comment would’ve started “As a current toddler…” Anyone who knows that the sexual abuse of children is occurring and acts so callously as to downplay it and sweep it under the rug has no place in modern society. That’s as nicely as I can put that.

“With as much emotion and sympathy as I harbor for the young men who’ve endured through this, it pains me to read the bickering and finger-pointing I’ve encountered in comment threads like this. And while it is normally in my nature to grab my trident for a healthy round of devil’s advocate with the popular and most often intelligent opinion, I cannot help but side with Joe Paterno in this matter. I’m about as far removed from sports as a sociable college male can get; I will not rally for a few chants of WE ARE… at the end of this post. If you’re going to scrutinize the choices he made in reference to the 2002 incident, be thorough enough to consider this: He wasn’t thinking about slandering Sandusky, he wasn’t concerned about his career or standing in the community. The decision of if/when/to whom this should be reported wasn’t calculated with pro’s and con’s. Continue reading →

Unethical Headline of the Day: KABC-TV, Los Angeles

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The headline: “Are insurance companies spying on your Facebook page?”

Why it’s unethical:

1.     The device of asking a question that raises suspicion of wrongdoing when there is none and no indication that it is occurring is inherently unfair and unethical.

2.     The story never discusses “spying” at all. Examining the public area of a Facebook page—and that is all that is described in the article—is no more spying than reading this blog is spying. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

"Give me a C! Give me an H! Give me an I! Give me an L! Give me a D! Give me an M! ...."

The good news: the “Occupy” demonstrations are no longer the most irresponsible and offensive in the country. The bad:#1 is a rally in support of child molesting.

All right, that’s unfair; I apologize, Penn State students. What today’s raucous, banner-waiving, cheering throng of hundreds outside embattled football coach Joe Paterno’s house really was supporting was Paterno himself…now squarely identified as a man who allowed a probable child abuser to continue preying on young boys for years, because, we can only assume, he was more focused on winning football games than being a human being. That’s better. Not much better, though, because cheering Paterno now, at this moment, communicates approval of his choices, priorities and values, which said, in essence, “Let the rapes continue. Go Penn State!” Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Disloyalty…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Good ol' whatshisname. We'll never forget him.

…also ingratitude, venality, and crassness.

Baseball’s  Kansas City Royals are putting the name of their ball park, now Kauffman Staudium, up for corporate bidding. Soon the stadium that stood as a monument to the late Kansas City community leader Ewing Kauffmann, who owned the Royals in their very first season (1969), built the state-of-the-art home for them that is still a source of civic pride, and turned the team into a model franchise and perennial pennant contender in record time, will be named “Kansas City Masterpiece Stadium” or something else that makes it a giant billboard. Meanwhile, little will be left to remind future baseball fans and Kansas City residents of the life and dedication of the man who was responsible for the city having a major league team at all. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Penn State, the Child Molester and the Dark Side of Loyalty”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Newcomer Steven Ardler muses over a provocative question about the virtue loyalty in his Comment of the Day on“Penn State, the Child Molester and the Dark Side of Loyalty”:

“Out of curiosity: would you say that a better definition of Loyalty is needed? It seems to me that the dilemma can be partially resolved by claiming all Loyalty need be to “the good” rather than to a person/institution/nation (I put the term in quotations because I am conflicted as to its actual meaning).

“We choose people and institutions that we believe maximize the good and adhere to their policies and behaviors accordingly. When those people or institutions step away from the good, our “Loyalty” to them is revoked. In this case, nearly by definition, Loyalty will always be a virtue. Of course, a very simple counter to this idea will be the varying interpretations of “good.” Muslim suicide-bombers are, in their ethical consideration, maximizing good in the universe by doing Allah’s will (according to their interpretation of that will). A bishop in the Catholic church may *feel* as if he is maximizing good by not condemning his pederast brethren, as he serves what he thinks is the ultimate good – a god. A coach at Penn State may think that he is loyal to the good, by determining that the university accomplishes enough good to be worth preserving from scandal. All of these are very apparently flawed, but this type of reasoning would abound with a new definition of loyalty, nonetheless. I feel like a re-tuned definition of Loyalty *helps*, but certainly does not resolve the problem. Is there a way to define loyalty in which it is actually a virtue, and not just a description of a series of actions?”

Stupid Religion Tricks

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Efforts by religious and anti-religious interest groups to push their beliefs and agendas are unavoidable, if often annoying. When their machinations threaten real harm, they ought to be condemned, opposed, and told to behave. In its response to two recent incidents, our government is batting .500.

The Memorial Power Play

The Obama administration announced its objection to a Republican-backed proposal to add President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington. This would block the intent of Congressman Bill Johnson’s bill, the “World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2011.” Continue reading →

Penn State, the Child Molester and the Dark Side of Loyalty

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

"Loyalty" by Joe Drache

The ethical issues in the unfolding Penn State scandal are not complex. Unless the grand jury got things completely confused, high officials of the school as well as legendary football coach Joe Paterno had credible information indicating that former Paterno assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sexually molested young boys on the Penn State campus, and did nothing about it. Now, after a three-year investigation, Sandusky has been charged with forty counts of child abuse by Pennsylvania authorities, and Penn State’s athletic director and a university vice-president have been charged with perjury and failing to report the crime. [UPDATE 11/7/20011: the University officials both resigned late yesterday.]

Paterno is apparently not going to be charged, because he alerted university administrators, technically complying with Pennsylvania law. Ethically, it doesn’t matter. Paterno, like University athletic director Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, Penn State’s senior vice president for finance and business, and apparently Penn State president Graham Spanier as well, did nothing for nine years after being alerted to Sandusky’s apparent proclivities, knowing that a probable child sexual predator was not only on the loose, but operated a foundation for at-risk kids that kept him supplied with ready victims. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Jimmy Kimmel and Too Many Sadistic Parents

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

How hilarious.

ABC late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel suggested to parents among his audience on Halloween  that they lie to their young children and tell them that they ate all of their Halloween candy, and video their reactions to post on YouTube. Kimmel ran the “best” of the results on his show, introducing the segment by saying, “I didn’t expect so much crying.”

Oh. Well, it’s all right then. It’s all right to appeal to the true assholes—there is no better word — among his audience members and urge them to upset their own children for his entertainment and the entertainment of YouTube viewers. That’s Jimmy! It’s good to know who the sociopaths are among late night entertainers. Letterman, we know about. Ask Conan about Jay. Continue reading →