Members of the Baseball Writers Association of America have been turning in their ballots for the Hall of Fame, their collective totals eventually determining which retired major league baseball stars will have plaques in Cooperstown. If you follow baseball closely, you are aware of the big debates this year: Is Tim Raines worthy? Will Bert Blyleven finally make it? Has Alan Trammel been unfairly neglected? What about Jack Morris and Roberto Alomar? If you don’t follow baseball, you couldn’t care less, and I pity you. One controversy this year, however, should be of interest to non-fans as well as fans, because it involves the proper application of the ethical principles of fairness and equity in an environment of doubt. It is the Jeff Bagwell dilemma. Continue reading
bigotry
Ethics Lessons From the Helen Thomas Meltdown
“The leaders of Wayne State University have made a mockery of the First Amendment and disgraced their understanding of its inherent freedom of speech and the press,” said 90-year-old ex-journalist Helen Thomas, when told that her alma mater, Wayne State, was ending the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award in response to her most recent anti-Semitic remarks. “The university also has betrayed academic freedom — a sad day for its students.”
A few lessons with ethical overtones can be gleaned from this latest development in the sad coda to Thomas’s long career: Continue reading
An Ethical Observation and Plea Regarding the “Don’t Ask…” Debate
Sen. John McCain thinks that there needs to be more study regarding whether gay Americans, including those who have already shown themselves to be exemplary soldiers, should be banned from service in the military once their sexual orientation is known. He, and others, don’t want to “rush the decision.” This is callous, inhumane, and wrong.
The public controversy over this atrocious and inhuman policy from the Clinton years has stained America’s principles based on nothing but bigotry and ignorance for over a decade, and now the endless slog to a cure is proving almost as bad as the disease. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Eugene Delgaudio, Homophobe
Eugene Deguadio, a Loudoun County, Va. lawmaker, told his 100,00 followers in the conservative nonprofit Public Advocate of the United States that the airport feel-up pat-downs (of which Ethics Alarms readers know I am so fond) are really meant to complete a Transportation Security-assisted “homosexual agenda.” “That means the next TSA official that gives you an enhanced pat-down could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission,” he wrote to the group, which he leads in his spare time. Continue reading
More Unethical Anti-Dog Slander by The Daily Beast
It is odd that a news website called “The Daily Beast” is engaging in an ongoing effort to misinform and frighten the public regarding dogs. Someone—publisher Tina Brown perhaps?—in The Daily Beast’s lair must have been badly frightened by a puppy at some point in his or her life, leading to an irrational fear of dogs and mind-blowing ignorance regarding them. Earlier this year, the site published two unhinged calls for the eradication of anything resembling a pit bull by a writer whose pet was attacked by one. At the moment, The Daily Beast features a gallery with the ominous title “39 Most Dangerous Dog Breeds” that had to be assembled by some one who has seldom seen a real dog, much less owned one. On the home page, the feature is placed under the heading, “Beware of the Dog.”
The criteria for the ranking is completely mysterious—several of the breeds listed, for example, have exactly one attack attached to them. The gallery itself is riddled with errors and is actually quite funny, if one knows anything about dogs at all. In addition to being careless and incompetent, the feature is dishonest, and seems to be calculated to make people irrationally frightened of dogs, when in fact the relationship between human and canines is one of life’s great and fortunate pleasures. Continue reading
Ethics Heroes: Thomas Jefferson Descendants David Works, Shay Banks-Young and Julia Jefferson Westerinen
Among the Common Ground Awards that will be given out tonight is one inscribed to:
“The Descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: David Works, Shay Banks-Young and Julia Jefferson Westerinen For their work to bridge the divide within their family and heal the legacy of slavery in the United States”
And therein lies quite a tale. Continue reading
Ethics Train Wreck at Howell High: the Teacher, the Belt Buckle, and the Purple Shirt
This incident, from Howell High in Livingston Michigan, is an ethics train wreck, and a tough one to analyze.
A Michigan teacher has been accused of bullying students in an incident sparked by the teacher himself wearing a purple shirt in a gesture of support toward gay students who suffer at the hands of bullies.
Jay McDowell, a teacher at the high school, wore a purple shirt to class on a day approved by the school for students to wear purple in support of gay teens. This came in response to several nationally publicized incidents of bullying and beating of gays, leading, in some cases, to suicide. When one student asked about the teacher’s shirt, McDowell’s explanation sparked an argument. 16-year-old Daniel Glowacki protested that McDowell had just asked another student to remove a belt buckle bearing the image of the Confederate flag, which McDowell sais was offensive to him. Glowacki, however, argued that it was inconsistent and unfair for the teacher to make a student remove a symbol he felt was offensive, but force students, like Glowacki, to tolerate the purple shirts and rainbow flags, which Glowacki said celebrated conduct that he, as a Catholic, found offensive to his personal beliefs. He then announced that he didn’t accept gays, and another student agreed. The teacher ejected and suspended both of them for inappropriate and disruptive class conduct.
The school, in response to parent objections, then disciplined McDowell. The letter of reprimand read: Continue reading
Ethics Hero: George Clooney
An ethical challenge that all of us face now and then involves being present in a gathering when a host, a friend, a colleague or someone else makes an objectively bigoted or outrageously unfair and disrespectful statement about a group that is not represented and thus unable to defend itself. At such times we all have a duty to confront and correct the speaker and condemn the sentiment, but the execution is difficult, and requires tact, knowledge, clarity and courage. Doing and saying nothing, however, gives the speaker and his slander support and tacit endorsement.
Fortunately, thanks to the magic of on-line video and George Clooney, we now have a lovely “How To” clip that demonstrates the right way to discharge one’s ethical duty in these awkward situations. Continue reading
Juan Williams, Revelations and the Phony NPR Ethics Code
We have learned a lot from the Juan Williams firing. For example,
- We learned that Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd only find it offensive when white pundits draw a connection between Muslims and terrorism, while fervently believing that African-American pundits should be able to express similar opinions without fear of reprisal. (I would point out to The View’s women that walking out on a guest on television is exactly as intolerant as firing an employee for a similar opinion.)
- We learned that at NPR, opinions that run counter to the officially sanctioned culturally-diverse cant are not merely regarded as mistaken, but crazy. NPR’s CEO stated that Williams should have kept his opinions about Muslims “between himself and his psychiatrist.” This is how the Soviet Union used to treat anyone whose opinion varied from state Marxism, too, and the dissidents were sent to mental institutions. Does it bother anyone else that the head of a state-funded radio network treats dissent so disrespectfully? Yes, Vivian Schiller later apologized for her “thoughtless”—as in, “I don’t want people to know I think this way”—remark. It was telling nonetheless. Continue reading
Juan Williams, Martyr to Tolerance
Appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor,” reliable Fox house liberal Juan Williams told the bloviating host:
“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Whereupon he was summarily fired from his long-time position as senior correspondent with National Public Radio.
Why? Continue reading
