U.S. Society

Air Passenger Etiquette: Who Gets the Armrests?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

A site called Neatorama polled various ethicists, travelers and air flight experts regarding who should get the armrests when all three seats in a row in coach are occupied.

Actually, the graphic accompanying the column suggests that it also discusses two other flyingetiquette issues as well: do you recline your seat, and if you have a window seat and need to use the rest room when the other two passengers are asleep, what do you do?

Ah, air travel. Such a pleasure.

I can’t find any answers to those in the column, though, and that’s fine I know them already: Continue reading →

Comments of the Day: “Bully Ethics…”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I was in New York all day, and returned to find a plethora of excellent comments on the post, “Bully Ethics: Lessons from Casey the Punisher.” Two of the finest follow, and they go well together: Michael on the dilemma facing the bullied child, and Lianne on her family’s solution.

First, Michael:

“Bullies only understand violence. If you are being bullied, how can you stop it? Continue reading →

Bully Ethics: Lessons From “Casey the Punisher”

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

 

Go get him, Ralphie!

The YouTube video of the tormented 16-year-old Australian student who provides a surprise ending to a 12-year-old bully’s fun at his expense by suddenly slamming the younger boy to the ground—breaking the bully’s ankle in the process— has set off an international debate that could help clarify some important ethical dilemmas regarding bullying, or muddle them further.

 

The video shows a heavy teen, one who classmates say has been bullied by other children for years, enduring repeated punches by a smaller student as his humiliation is being videoed for posterity. Then, emulating Ralphie’s sudden rage against the evil Scut Farkus in one of “A Christmas Story’s” iconic scenes, he suddenly fights back…and how. Continue reading →

The SATs: Flat Learning Curve=Unfair Questions

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The secret to acing your SATs? Know your Kardashians!

After all the anger, debate and controversy in the Sixties over affirmative action and the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, with the case finally being made to the public’s satisfaction that including test questions  based on cultural references likely to be unfamiliar to African-Americans or lower-income students (such as, famously, questions about yachting) negatively affected their test scores, wouldn’t you think that it would have been thoroughly understood by the people who make up the SAT scores that questions with a cultural bias were inherently unfair and incompetent questions?

Here is the prompt for the essay question in the SAT test given to high school students across the country last week : Continue reading →

Unethical Crime Victim of the Month: Kamofie & Co.

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Next time, Lindsay, pick a classier store to rob.

Lindsay Lohan, in addition to having stunningly bad judgment, multiple addictions, lousy parents, sycophantic friends, and an army of paid enablers, also has rotten luck. When she walked out of a jewelry store wearing a $2,500 necklace, she picked an ethically dubious enterprise, Kamofie & Co., that may have  grossly over-priced the necklace, turning the shoplifting into grand theft. But that’s just the beginning.

Lohan, who is on probation and facing jail time for the incident, was caught on a surveillance tape in January as she strolled out of the store, with the unpurchased jewelry around her neck. Some establishments, recognizing the alleged thief as someone who is famous, troubled, and in need of some kindness, would have privately contacted the actress, accepted her (probably) false excuse that the act was inadvertent, and allowed her to return the item with involving the police.

Not Kamofie, however, which apparently saw the incident as an opportunity to make itself a household word. Continue reading →

No Time for Brackets

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Thank God THAT's taken care of...

I don’t need to go into great detail on this; either it bothers you, or it doesn’t.

I strongly suspect there are many of President Obama’s supporters who are bothered, but will never admit it: hence the silence from the mainstream media. I am certain that there are many on the Right who are bothered, but since they are bothered by everything the President does, their annoyance is easy to dismiss. Many, I know, won’t see it, can’t see it, don’t care, and will just turn their attention other matters with a shrug, if that. For my part, I am bothered because I believe that leaders have to be competent and to engender trust by showing good judgment, and I believe the President of the United States has an added obligation to maintain the weight, credibility, and honor of the office, and therefore its strength.

President Obama’s special invitation to ESPN to come to the White House and announce his bracket picks for the NCAA basketball tournament was as frightening a demonstration of tone-deaf leadership malpractice as I have seen, or read about, from any of the 12 U.S. Presidents of my lifetime. Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: The Fukushima 50, Reminding Us What Real Heroism Is

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

We all throw around the words “hero” and “heroism” too readily, and it cheapens the real thing, which is rare, and awe-inspiring. Teachers are heroes, cancer patients are heroes, mothers and dads are heroes, legislators who ignore polls are heroes, quarterbacks are heroes. There is much heroism around us, certainly—those who do vital jobs and make courageous choices at personal sacrifice deserve praise and recognition, as do those who overcome tremendous personal challenges. We should appreciate these acts when we see them.

Still, this leaves us unable to muster the words to distinguish the rarest and most remarkable of heroes, like the fifty Japanese nuclear technicians who have remained behind to try to prevent a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant damaged by Friday’s earthquake. They are not merely risking their lives, but quite probably trading them, for the well-being of their country and its citizens.

We should all aspire to such courage, selflessness, and character.

In the pantheon of ethical conduct, the Fukushima Fifty deserve the most honored place of all.

“Lethal Advocacy”: Not Ethical, and Not Protected Speech, Either

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

"Go ahead! Jump! You know you want to!"

William Melchert-Dinkel, aged 48, posed as a female nurse in internet chat rooms and preyed on depressed people by talking them into killing themselves.  A misguided mission? A perverted hobby? A salesmanship challenge? Who knows. But occasionally, he was successful.

Melchert-Dinkel was charged with assisting suicides after he encouraged IT technician Mark Drybrough, of Hillfields, Minnesota, to kill himself. Drybrough, who was recovering from a nervous breakdown, received e-mails from Melchert-Dinkel, found on his computer, containing detailed advice on how Drybrough could hang himself. He used that advice to commit suicide in 2005. Melchert-Dinkel also provided encouragement and guidance to Canadian Nadia Kajouji,  18, who drowned herself by leaping into an icy river in 2008. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Find The Tell-Tale Mistake!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Unfortunately, James O'Keefe is no Nellie Bly

Kansas City Star reporter Mary Sanchez has posted an excellent column entitled “James O’Keefe and the Ethical Bankruptcy of ‘Gotcha’ Journalism.” Outside of an unfortunate final “Let’s see some genuine evidence that NPR’s coverage is biased” conclusion (you mean, other than its choice of stories, its lack of ideological balance, Nina Totenberg, its treatment of Juan Williams, and its institutionalized positions on issues like Palestine, gun control, abortion,  and illegal immigration?), she makes a strong case. But her piece is marred by a tell-tale gaffe that makes me doubt her own ethical orientation.

Your challenge in today’s Ethics Quiz: Find it! It occurs in this section: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day:”Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

An Ethics Alarms heartfelt thank you and “I owe you one!” to Ethics Sage, for cutting to the other core ethical point about what was wrong with Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student, and why she should have been dismissed from the university course as a consequence. It wasn’t just failure of responsibility, which my post was fixated on, but also failure of caring, compassion, and our shared duty as human beings to help each other even if our religion encourages us to regard those human beings as immoral.

Ethics Sage shows his handle ain’t just horn-blowin’ with this Comment of the Day, on the post “Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…”

“Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student is despicable on many levels. What if the student’s life had been threatened and he went to counseling to get some advice? How can anyone not act to help a person in that kind of situation or others we can think of that may or may not have anything to do with being gay? By refusing to counsel the gay student, Ward failed miserably not only to meet the requirements of the course but to act as a human being with compassion for another.”