U.S. Society

Petersen Was Right: “Jon & Kate” Exploited Their Kids

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Back when everyone was buzzing about TLC’s reality show “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” long before the dark side of the show began to emerge, before the messy divorce of the couple, before Kate was revealed as a castrating control freak and Jon showed himself to have the maturity of a 12-year-old, and long, long before Kate demonstrated that she may be the least watchable dancer ever to appear in televised dance show, child performer advocate Paul Petersen was sounding the alarm that the show violated child labor laws. Reality show producers sneak in through loop-holes in the laws regulating scripted shows, and Petersen, to  nasty derision from some quarters, kept making the point that what the Gosselins were doing with their eight children was against the law, harmful to them, and wrong.

Now that the show is off the air, Pennsylvania, where it was filmed, has finally gotten around to looking into Petersen’s allegations, and guess what? He was right all the time. Continue reading →

The Amazing Mouthwash Deception: Helping Alcoholics Relapse For Profit

/ Jack Marshall / 64 Comments

It has been with us for centuries, as long as man has been fermenting vegetable matter to produce alcohol, and it is a plague on the human race. Virtually every one of us has friends, relatives or close associates with the disease, or battle the addiction ourselves; although accurate figures don’t exist, estimates of the prevalence of alcohol addiction in the U.S. range between 5 and 12%. Whatever the real figure is, it is a lot, and the disease causes a wide range of problems. For example, close to 50% of all automobile fatalities involve alcohol. Yet the public remains shockingly ignorant about alcoholism, to the detriment and convenience of alcoholics, and the devastation of their families

The ignorance is also profitable to some corporations that are not even officially in the beverage business. The ethics question is, do those corporations knowingly and intentionally encourage and facilitate that ignorance? If so, they have a lot to answer for, and so do government consumer agencies and the media. This ignorance kills.

Continue reading →

Roman’s Rule, Guam’s Peril and Rep. Johnson: No Minimum Standards of Competence For Congress

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Ever since I saw the video of Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) declaring his anxiety over the possibility that the island of Guam will “tip over” and “capsize,” I’ve been wrestling with the question: Shouldn’t there be some minimum level of intelligence and competence for members of Congress? I’m not considering anything lofty here, but a man whose vote helped pass a health care bill of unprecedented complexity that will affect every American just revealed that he thinks islands are like icebergs or floating trash can covers. This suggests that he may be subject to many other misconceptions, since he has apparently never read a newspaper, much less watched a National Geographic special. Not to be unkind about it, but such a statement, uttered on television for all the world to see, is prima facie evidence that he is an ignorant dim-wit. Whatever a safe and responsible cut-off point would be for admission to Congress, can we agree that fearing the capsizing of Guam would put one well below it? I don’t know about you, but I’m a little frightened. Continue reading →

Kidder on Apologies

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Ethicist Rushworth Kidder, one of the best in the field, has graced us with a superb essay on apologies, inspired by the recent rash of the public variety from various architects of the financial meltdown, not to mention Tiger Woods.

It isn’t long; just wise, fair and perceptive.

The Conundrum of the Unsuccessful Cheat

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

A sharp-eyed Chicago White Sox fan with a blog at his disposal caught something interesting in yesterdays Twins-White Sox game, which ended in a ChiSox victory when Twins baserunner J.J. Hardy was thrown out at home to end the game. As Hardy rounded third, Twins third base coach Scott Ullger stepped on to the playing field, planted one foot on third and for all the world looked like a runner holding the bag until he saw if the relay throw was going to be fielded cleanly. Was his intent to fool Twin Mark Teahan, who had just received the throw from the outfield, into believing—just for a crucial second—that he was Hardy, thus delaying the relay throw home? If so, it didn’t work: Teahan threw home quickly and well, and Hardy was a dead duck. As the blogger,Jim Margalus, writes,

“…it would’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened if the relay were botched, because what Ullger is doing seems to be in violation of rule 7.09(h), in which…‘With a runner on third base, the base coach leaves his box and acts in any manner to draw a throw by a fielder;… is defined as an act of interference’.” Continue reading →

Cowardice Trumps Duty: The Oprah Bio Freeze-Out

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Sometimes professionals reveal the flaws in their ethical armor in their handling of the little things.

Celebrity shark Kitty Kelley, who has wounded other celebrities with dirty-linen airing, unauthorized biographies (supposedly her hatchet job on Frank Sinatra caused Ol’ Blue Eyes to consider having her whacked), has sunk her teeth into Oprah Winfrey. The usual, well-worn method that get such bio-trash sold is a media tour, and Kelley is a veteran of it, having used interviews and talk-show experiences to make best-sellers out of her bios of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, the British Royal Family, and the Bushes. But these were just icons, super-stars, idols, royalty and world leaders; now that Kelley is taking on the Big O, all bets are off. It has been reported in multiple sources that the usual facilitators of Kelley’s book plugging efforts have been turning Kelley’s publicist down. They don’t want to cross Oprah. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

“In confronting their summary disposal, we see how cruelty thrives in the guise of compassion. The possibility of such collective social derangement makes intellectually coherent actions that are incompatible with moral integrity.”

——-Colin Dayan in his searing essay for  the March-April “Boston Review”, about the disturbing societal implications of pit bull extermination facilitated by the collaboration of law enforcement agencies, animal protection organizations, the media and the courts. Continue reading →

How We Will Know When the GOP Can Be Trusted

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Democrats swept into power in the wake of an unpopular war,  economic collapse, and perhaps most of all, indisputable proof that too many Republican lawmakers were venal, corrupt, arrogant, and unworthy of power. It has taken only a year from the promises of ethical reform made by Speaker Pelosi and President Obama to seem insincere, and Republican’s believe that this time public distrust will work to their favor, returning them to the power they abused. They may be right. Still, the public is not stupid. If Republicans intend to campaign as the party of fiscal responsibility and honest government, they must demonstrate that the commitment is more than a masquerade. Time and credibility, however, are in short supply. Continue reading →

Exemplary Ethics: Opportunity for the Gambling Grannies’ Lawyers

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

My discussion of that sad case of the two elderly Connecticut sisters who are embroiled in a lawsuit over lottery winnings did not focus on their lawyers, and that was intentional. Though I spend most of my time teaching legal ethics, I only venture there on Ethics Alarms rarely, because 1) to do it right usually requires being technical, and technical is not conducive to 700-1000 word essays, and 2) most lawyers are bored by legal ethics, so non-lawyers figure to be bored even more.  A new reason became crystal clear this week, when I foolishly steered an issue involving blog ethics into legal ethics because the blogger happened to be a lawyer, was reckless with my terms, and ended up unfairly implying something I did not mean to imply. My apology for that fiasco is here.

Nevertheless, I should have discussed the role of lawyers in the Connecticut case. I am not privy to their advice to their respective clients, and for all I know, they may well have attempted what I suggest here. Whether they did or not, this case is an excellent one to reflect on what lawyers do, and ought to do. Continue reading →

King Downloading Backlash: Randy and the Rationalizations

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Ethics Alarms wasn’t the only one to challenge Randy Cohen’s embrace of illegal downloading in his “The Ethicist column last week. It caused a great deal of debate elsewhere, and , as usual, most of the tech heads sided with Cohen. Two of the most common arguments were endorsed by the excellent blog Tech Dirt. The first is the most popular, and the easiest to discard. The second is equally wrong, but explaining why takes longer. Continue reading →