accountability

Unethical Website of the Month:charlesphillipsandyavaughniewilkins.com

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

It seems to be down now, but the odor lingers on. And there is the matter of the billboards..

Let us stipulate, without really knowing, that YaVaughnie Wilkins has legitimate grievances with  her married former boyfriend, the distinguished Charles E. Phillips, who is president of tech conglomerate Oracle and a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Let us assume that she was legitimately heartbroken and angry when he returned to his wife recently after engaging in an eight year affair with Wilkens, and that YaVaughnie (YaVaughnie??)  was taken by surprise, since Phillips’ wife had filed for divorce two years ago.

Never mind. Creating and publicizing a website, http://www.charlesphillipsandyavaughniewilkins.com, designed to expose the intimate details of a dead affair is indefensible. Setting out to publically humiliate Phillips is revenge, pure and simple. Revenge is unethical. Always. Continue reading →

Final Ethics Alarms on the Coakley-Brown Race: Fairness and Honesty Take a Holiday

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Some concluding Ethics Alarms from the Brown-Coakley Senate race, many with the same dispiriting lesson: hyper-partisan zealotry is causing many Americans to abandon their senses of fairness, proportion, and common sense : Continue reading →

On Hoaxes, Avatar, and More Late Night Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Hoax Update

  • Singer, model, television personality and inexplicable celebrity Tia Tequila announced in December that she was engaged to the heiress to the Johnson and Johnson fortune, Casey Johnson. The troubled Johnson turned up dead in squalid circumstances in January, prompting a grief-stricken online statement from Tia in which she spelled her beloved’s name wrong. Shortly after this, it was revealed that the engagement was a publicity stunt by Tequila, who barely knew Johnson. Fake romances for publicity purposes are as old as the Tudors, but this sort of thing further trivializes truth for an entire generation. Continue reading →

On Frozen Tongues and the No-Accountability Culture

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

A Siro, Oklahoma school bus driver, who is also a teacher, leaves a fifth-grade student stuck by the side of the road with her tongue frozen fast to a metal pole. The bus driver tells the girl that she doesn’t have time to help her, and drives away, forcing the girl to free herself by slowly chewing her way off the pole. The school discusses the situation with the driver and others who are charged with transporting the children, and declares the problem solved. The bus driver, the school says, will continue in both her duties.

Enough.

It is time for everyone to resist the increasing cultural pressure to create an accountability-free society. Continue reading →

Lies, Scams, Fiascos, and “Saved By the Bell”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Some diverse ethics observations while living the lonely existence of a traveling ethics trainer… Continue reading →

Napolitano Ethics: “Heck of a job, Janet!”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Is it too much to ask that our government officials don’t try to con us, deceive us, and treat us like idiots?

Apparently so. Continue reading →

Remembering Ted Kennedy Fairly

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Today, on the Sunday before the new year, the New York Times Magazine has its annual issue of brief profiles of famous, important, and not-so-famous-but-still-important people who breathed their last in the past twelve months. It is always a fascinating collection; for me, the exercise is a slap in the face, focusing my wandering attention upon how many remarkable lives and achievements have escaped my awareness and proper appreciation—and this is only a small, random collection. The last of the profiles, however, was about a life I knew a lot about: Ted Kennedy. In my view, the piece fails an ethical imperative. It doesn’t mention Mary-Jo Kopechne. Continue reading →

“Operation Chokehold” and the Protest Ethics Checklist

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Some disgruntled iPhone users are trying to organize a protest by paralyzing the ATT network with a flood of data this Friday. The mastermind is the so-called “fake Steve Jobs,” Dan Lyons, who calls his protest “Operation Chokehold.”

Blogger Lauren Weinstein [special thanks to Gabe Goldberg for the tip] has effectively identified this juvenile plan for what it is, namely “childish, stupid, irresponsible, and potentially extremely dangerous.”  Continue reading →

The Ethics of Ignorance and Apathy: Gore’s Million Degree Gaffe

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I didn’t watch Al Gore when he appeared on the Tonight Show a couple weeks ago. What he said then while hobnobbing with Conan should be old news, but in fact it was no news at all, because virtually no news media gave it more than a passing mention. Then, by purest accident, I heard a talk-radio host ranting about a shocking statement Gore had made on the show, and I checked to see if he could possibly be quoting the former Vice-President correctly.

He was. Here is the exchange: Continue reading →

Abortion Debate in the Senate: Inconvenient Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

It will be major irony if the Senate health care reform bill, an irresponsible, cynical, dishonest piece of legislation (any legislation that is 2000 pages, unreadable, and largely unread by those voting for it is, by definition, irresponsible, cynical and dishonest), fails because of its position on abortion. The bill is an abomination and deserves to fail, but not because of that. Continue reading →