Atrocious People, Part II: Harry Reid Thinks Pandering To Political Correctness Is More Important Than Upholding Honesty And Integrity

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
This is Harry Reid, but I just can't stand looking at the man any more, so I put a bag over his head....

This is Harry Reid, but I just can’t stand looking at the man any more, so I put a bag over his head….

[It’s Atrocious People Day at Ethics Alarms, and no Atrocious People Day would be complete without Harry Reid.]

“I find it stunning that the National Football League is more concerned about how much air is in a football than with a racist franchise name that denigrates Native Americans across the country,” Senator Harry Reid said on the floor of the Senate.

Well, of course he does! After all, Harry thinks that cheating is great, if it works! He justified falsely accusing Mitt Romney of not paying taxes, confident in the laziness and gullibility of the American voter. “Why, he’s the Senate Majority Leader, Mildred! He wouldn’t lie to us!” And, as Harry pointed out, it worked—Romney lost, so Harry did the right thing. No wonder Reid doesn’t see why the NFL would care about Tom Brady pressuring low-level employees so they would help him cheat by secretly make the footballs easier for him to throw in a play-off game—after all, it worked! He won! Brady lied about it? So what? Reid approves of that, too. The statement above is a typical Reid lie: the NFL showed that it was concerned about cheating, lying, sportsmanship and integrity, not “the air in a football.”

But for the lawful owner of a business to be able to keep its 80 year old name that an entire city has cheered, worn on jerseys and caps, and made part of its culture, even though professional political correctness profiteers claimed to be grievously offended by the name because they wanted to be? That, to Harry Reid, is outrageous.*

What isn’t outrageous to Harry—just fair-minded, ethical Americans who understand such concepts as why it is wrong for the government to chill individual rights and the dangers of abuse of power by elected official—-is a U.S. Senator using his high office to attack and harass private citizens who are doing noting illegal, and only doing wrong according to Harry Reid’s Bizarro World values. Continue reading →

Atrocious People, Part I: The Dog Rescuer, Elantra Cunningham, And What To Do About Her

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments

bad-apples1

Let me make the ultimate conclusion of this post immediate and prominent:

The dog rescuer, Michael Hammons, is admirable and ethical in every way. Elantra Cunningham, the irresponsible and ungrateful woman who placed the dog in peril and had Hammons arrested for rescuing it is unethical and shockingly lacking in civilized values.

Let us all henceforth regard them and treat them appropriately according to their conduct in this matter.

There.

Now the details.

Over the weekend, Desert Storm veteran Michael Hammons saw a small dog locked in a parked car, with its windows closed, on a sweltering day in Athens,  Georgia. The dog, an Australian terrier mix, I think,  was panting, and Harmon correctly concluded that it was minutes away from death.  He smashed in the windows of the car with the footrest of his wife’s wheelchair.

22-year-old Elantra Cunningham, owner of both the dog and the car, insisted that a police officer arrest Hammons for trespass and destroying private property. “It was not an arrest made by the deputy’s own volition,” Chief Deputy Lee Weems explained. “The woman pressed charges for breaking out the window of the car, and the deputy did what he had to do.”

Animal control cited Elantra for leaving her dog in a hot vehicle. Hammons spent the night in jail.

Comments: Continue reading →

The Ultimate Pazuzu At TNT Academy

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

pazuzzu

Frequent readers here will be familiar with the Pazuzu Excuse. Pazuzu was the demon that made Linda Blair say such awful things in “The Exorcist”—he also made her head swivel around 180 degrees. Pazuzu is the presumptive miscreant whenever someone tried to beg forgiveness for a particularly vile, and often career-threatening remark by arguing that the statement “didn’t reflect my true beliefs,” as if someone else had suddenly grabbed the controls. Michael Richards (“Kramer” on “Seinfeld”) was, therefore, mystified about why he suddenly started screaming “Nigger!” at a stand-up comedy performance. Mel Gibson swore that all the anti-Semitic slurs he uttered on a fateful night were of mysterious origin, since he isn’t the kind of guy who would act like that. (Later events proved this to be mistaken.) There are many examples from the famous, momentarily famous and not famous at all.

The Full Pazuzu is reached when someone implies that what was said or written suggests a different identity. Sony executive Amy Pascal, to cite a recent example, explained her hacked e-mails (which really weren’t that bad) by writing,

“The content of my emails were insensitive and inappropriate but are not an accurate reflection of who I am…”

Whoever or whatever those e-mails were an accurate reflection of, they fired him/her/it.

Now, however, by way of Stone Mountain, Georgia, comes a rare Ultimate Pazuzu, where the individual under fire really blamed the devil. [NOTE: Pazuzu isn’t the devil, but he works for him, so under the principle of agency, it’s a distinction without a difference.] Continue reading →

When Typos Have Ethical Significance

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Law-Firm-Advertising-FAIL

I was chided over the weekend for mocking a misspelling in one of the cuckoo online comments cheering on Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s ridiculous “monitoring” of U.S. military exercises in his state. The thrust of my critic’s argument was that picking on such modes of expression was not only a cheap shot but an elitist cheap shot. I generally deplore the “You wrote ‘teh!'” school of online debate, and in my view, that wasn’t what I was doing when I pointed out this particular Texas paranoid’s spelling of government as “goverment” twice . His “position” didn’t require any rebuttal, as it was self-evidently batty; I alluded to “goverment” because I concluded that it was not a typo, but rather an indication that the commenter was as ignorant as granite block. If you can’t spell government, you haven’t read about government enough to have an opinion on it worth inflicting on the rest of us.

It led me to ponder, however, when a typo has undeniable ethical significance, and mirabile dictu, Above the Law today provided the excellent example you see above.

This is part of the marketing for a law firm—you know, those organizations that provide lawyers to ordinary citizens who need help negotiating the complexities of our nation’s increasingly impenetrable laws and regulations in order to live and prosper? Lawyers are supposedly trained in the precision of language, as the presence or absence of a comma or semi-colon in a statute, a motion or a brief can mean the difference between a client being a criminal or a free man, and an unnoticed typo in the draft of a contract, will, trust or settlement can decide the fate of millions of dollars, the ownership of disputed property, the existence of a prenuptial agreement, and other momentous, life-altering  consequences.

The very existence of an embarrassing  law firm marketing device like this one—I think it’s a coaster—leads to many conclusions:

1. It tells us that the law firm’s managing partners are inattentive to details, and in law, details are everything.

2. It tells us that the lawyers in the firm inadequately supervise the non-lawyers who work for the firm, and the ethics rules demand that lawyers be especially attentive to such employees and contractors.

3. It tells us that at least one firm lawyer, whoever approved the thing, either is illiterate or can’t be trusted to check the text of documents, even documents containing only three words.

4.It tells us, in short, that this law firm, and by extension the lawyers it employs, cannot be trusted to exercise care, competence and diligence when they are representing themselves.

How can it possibly be trustworthy when it is representing others?

__________________

Pointer and Source: Above the Law

The Unethical Tom Brady Conduct He Isn’t Being Punished For

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments
This isn't the graphic for this post for the reason you think it is...

This isn’t the graphic for this post for the reason you think it is…

The NFL surprised me a little yesterday—but pleasantly— by hitting New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his team with something approaching an appropriately tough penalty for cheating in a playoff game, lying about it, obstructing the NFL’s investigations, and then acting as if the whole mess was a joke. The NFL suspended Brady for four games, stripped the Patriots of their first-round draft pick in 2017 and a fourth-round pick as well, and fined the team $1 million for Brady’s  “conduct detrimental to the integrity of the NFL” and for “failure to cooperate in the subsequent investigation.”

Exactly. It wasn’t the infraction alone that made this serious; it was the suggestion, magnified by Brady’s smug attitude, that cheating in an NFL play-off game is no big deal and nothing to be upset or ashamed about. The team also had to be punished, in part because cheating has long been the Patriots’ MO, and the team’s continued success at winning championships, without some negative consequences, is a neon sign advertisement for cheating in games, in school, in business, in life.

Finally, the draft choices were a crucial element, because taking away those really hurt the team. Otherwise it would have been just an affordable fine: Brady doesn’t need the millions he’ll lose by not playing four games, and the Patriots are more than a one-man team; they might still win all four. As for team owner Robert Kraft, he won’t even notice that the million dollars is missing. The draft choices the team will notice. Good.

But there is another injustice here that isn’t getting as much attention as the suspending of New England’s smirking, cheating star. Continue reading →

So What’s The Theory, SNL, That After 40 Years, It’s OK to Plagiarize?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

SNL40

Saturday Night Live’s  “Draw Muhammad” sketch this week was very funny, but then, the cast knew that, since it had already been funny on a Canadian television satire show called “22 Minutes.” The skit, in short, was stolen. You can compare for yourself here.

Yes, what SNL does every week is incredibly stressful, difficult and risky. Writing, rehearsing and performing more than an hour of new material week after week is the equivalent of walking a tightrope with rabid weasels following you. I wrote and directed two original satire stage shows, and it was like riding a roller coaster that crashed every other time you buy a ticket—and you can’t stop riding. So I am sympathetic, very sympathetic. The temptation to swipe proven material from another source must be very strong when time is short and the ideas aren’t coming. Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart never stooped to plagiarism when they had to churn out new comedy classics for Sid Ceasar to perform every week on “Your Show of Shows,” but then they were Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart. I understand.

Nevertheless, this is a high breach of comedy writing ethics, especially for Saturday Night Live. After 40 years, it is an icon now. It has the status as an elder statesman of satire, a role model for Comedy Bang Bang! and Funny or Die and Archer and every other show written by people who have been watching SNL all their sentient lives. For this show’s writers and cast to cheat validates comedy plagiarism, or, perhaps, invalidates Saturday Night Live.

It will be better, but still unethical, if it turns out that the show bought the skit. For 40 years, SNL has built a reputation as brave, irreverent comic kamikazes who present brand new, original, daring, up-to-the-minute topical material never tested in front of an audience before. If its writers are now recycling the work of other less storied satire shows and their less well-remunerated writers, what does that mean? Is the grind becoming too much? Is the show unable to meet the expectations its previous incarnations created?

Or has it been cheating all along?

Ethics Hero: Sen. Ted Cruz

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

[UPDATE: Sen Cruz’s Ethics Hero designation has been REVOKED by Ethics Alarms. Details here.]

One of the Republican party’s most demonized  conservative politicians, Tea Party idol and Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, just challenged his progressive critics to concede that he has the character of a President, at least.

Cruz stood by politely as familiar TV pundit Mark Halperin cross-examined him on Bloomberg TV as if the Cuban-American was suspected of being born in Kenya. The demeaning interview (to both Cruz and Halperin, who disgraced himself) consisted of  Halperin pressing the Republican firebrand to prove his Hispanic bona fides with  cringe-worthy questions about his favorite Cuban food and what his tastes in Hispanic music were. (A Hispanic journalist quipped that Halperin had Cruz confused with Ricky Ricardo.) It all came to a nauseating climax when Halperin said: “I want to give you the opportunity to directly welcome your colleague Sen. Sanders to the race, and I’d like you to do it, if you would, en español.”

The fiasco of an interview took a while to register (apparently nobody watches Bloomberg), but when it did, Halperin was excoriated left, right, and center, called a racist, called a fool, called biased against Cruz and determined to trap him into a “Gotcha!” Mostly he was called an inept and unprofessional interviewer, and Halperin, who is playing talking head somewhere that actually has viewers almost every  day, had to issue an attempted career-salvaging apology.

Ted Cruz surprised everyone by coming to Halperin’s rescue. He wrote: Continue reading →

More On Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Massive Leadership Failure

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

big-lie

Texas governor Greg Abbott says that he’s monitoring the eight-week military exercise, known as Jade Helm 15, that will take place in his state and six others, so he can bring calm to some Texans who fear it is a prelude to an armed U.S. take-over.

Honest. That’s really his explanation.

Abbott wants Texans to understand that the military is only there to be better prepared to protect them, not to install martial law or take away their guns.  He says been in contact with the military, and has been assured that the exercise will be a normal military operation. “It’s so important to understand that there probably is no state in America that is more deeply connected to the military or honors the military more. And my office has been in communication with military at multiple levels, and we have the greatest assurances that these are normal military operations and they’re going to work out just fine,” Abbott said.

With supporters like Abbott, the federal government should find ISIS less threatening by the minute.

Hey, Governor! Texans are convinced that a Jewish cabal is trying to undermine financial system! Quick: put state monitors in the synagogues to reassure them that it’s not true! Oh, and they think gays are out trolling for young boys to convert to queerdom. Make sure you surveil all openly gay men, so you can reassure straight Texans that their fears are unwarranted. A lot of your voters also think that Democrats are secretly in league with the Communist party. That’s nuts, so tap the Dems’ phones so you can reassure the good Texas that they are not Red, just wrong

The Big Lie tactic works when a scurrilous and unjustified smear is given legitimacy by efforts to deny it, and the claim that the U.S. government is preparing to jackboot conservatives into submission is a classic Big Lie. Playing right along, Abbott gave credibility to the insane, and I use the word without hyperbole, belief that standard military exercises were secretly an attempt to remove Texas citizens’ rights by force when he  behaved as if the threat might be real.

This isn’t just pandering leadership and irresponsible leadership. It is disloyal, un-American and incompetent leadership. If Abbott really wanted to address these irrational fears, he had an obligation to do so like a leader who trusted and respected the national government to at least the essential minimum: no, they don’t want to enslave and kill us.  He should have said,

“Apparently some of our citizens are concerned that a planned military exercise involving U.S. Specials Operations Forces such as the Navy Seals and the Green Berets might be a hostile attack on our state.  Shame on them. We are all Americans, and while we may differ intensely on the best policies for our nation, we are united by a love of country, reverence for its values and traditions, and the Constitution of the United States. The suggestion that the President is any less dedicated to those values, or that our military would ever participate in an efforts to destroy them, demonstrates the depths to which political discourse has fallen. It has been suggested that I use the State Guard to monitor these exercises. I will order no such thing. To do so would be an insult to our President, our armed forces and the nation. I trust the good will and patriotic motivations of our national government without reservation, and so should every patriotic Texan.”

Instead, Abbott chose to fan the flames of division and distrust.

 

Beware of Heroes: Why Tom Brady Is An Ethics Corrupter

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

fallen heroAs a born Bostonian, proud of the Hub’s tradition of elevating the nation’s ethical sensitivities, the spectacle of the old city’s football fans embarrassing themselves out of loyalty to a home town quarterback who doesn’t deserve it is nauseating. As a recent New York Times feature gruesomely illustrates, Tom Brady’s complicity in a successful cheat to get the New England Patriots into the Super Bowl has corrupted the usually reliable ethical values of this iconic city.

The information coming out of the NFL is that Brady’s cheating, lying about it, refusing to cooperate with the league’s investigation and—I hope this is taken into consideration—his smirking attitude about the incident since the results of the investigation were announced will get him suspended for 6-8 games. Think of it: Boston has been so corrupted by its sports star that it is now less ethically sensitive than Roger Goodell.

Now that’s corruption. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Todd Smith

/ Jack Marshall / 70 Comments
Be vigilant, Governor! Next, Obama will be coming after your precious bodily fluids...

Be vigilant, Governor! Next, Obama will be coming after your precious bodily fluids…

I was preparing to comment on Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s absurd, embarrassing and recklessly divisive action of calling on the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise in the state juuuuust in case that sneaky, fake American Commie dictator Barack Obama is getting ready to put the Lone Star State under bayonet and martial law, as some local wackadoodles are claiming from under their ten gallon tin-foil hats. I decided that it was too obviously stupid to criticize before I read the approving comments by unhinged Texans on the governor’s  Facebook post announcing the order.

It received more than 25,000 likes and thousands of comments. Among them (My reactions in bold):

  • “Thank you, Mr. Abbott, but I doubt they listen to you or anyone, Obama will soon demand Marshall law, We need to keep them totally out of Texas. The devil is breathing down our necks right now. Everyone better pray.”  Now Marshall law, I have no problem with…
  • “Here comes Martial law Folks… get ready! ALL Texans need to be armed. It’s our right! I pray our Military will do what’s right! Not want the Commander and chief ( and I use that term loosely) wants them to do! STAND UP AMERICA… IF we don’t GOD HELP US ALL! If you look at the map that was posted.. Texas is listed as a hostile state, along with other repub. states!” THEY’RE HERE! THEY’RE HERE!!!! Oh, wait, I was thinking of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”…
  • Thank you sir I have no trust in our current goverment. Your actions on a day to day basis are giving me hope for our state goverment. If that’s how you’re spelling “government,” I have no hope at all…
  • “Governor Abbott’s got a pair, and he will not let them mess with Texas!” Well, thank God for that! If he let’s his pair mess with Texas, it would be the worst sex crime in history. Also: Ewww.

Luckily, a Republican, a Texan, and former state House member did it for me. Here is Todd Smith’s letter to the Governor. Continue reading →