character

Why We Shouldn’t Elect Liars

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

You can’t tell from the picture, but Senator Kirk’s pants are on fire.

It took a great deal of restraint for me not to write a post after reading the Daily Beast’s Micahel Tomasky’s infuriating essay about the “media witch hunt” against Elizabeth Warren. If there ever was a piece destined to send me over the edge, that was it: not only did Tomasky express indignation that anyone would use Warren’s pose as a minority to impugn her integrity, but he ridiculed concern over her plagiarism as well. Here, however, was the capper: he compared criticism of Warren to the attacks on Bill Clinton during the Monica fiasco, writing,

“The situations are in fact almost precisely the same. You had then a press pack that had decided that whether Bill Clinton was telling the truth about Monica was a question on which the fate of the republic hinged. The press became self-righteously consumed with its search for The Truth. Meanwhile, outside the Beltway, and outside of Wingnuttia (it existed then, just at about half of its current GDP), nobody cared what the truth was. The media kept producing revelations; surely, now, swore Maureen Dowd and Michael Kelly, America will see this man for the reprobate he is! America looked, yawned, told the press to start acting like grownups, and continued to approve of the job Clinton was doing as president at rates near 70 percent and to oppose impeachment at similar levels.” Continue reading →

“Forget Jobs, It’s You Passing Out In Public, Stupid!”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Well, maybe there’s something wrong with Wisconsin after all.

Mayor Ryan, behaving irrelevantly

In Sheboygan, Mayor Bob Ryan, is about to face Terry Van Akkeren in the first mayoral recall election in that Wisconsin city’s history. It was prompted after Ryan was caught on tape passed out in a bar after a drinking binge last summer. More than 4,000 Sheboygan voters signed petitions to force the recall.

As one would expect, the mayor who humiliated his community, set a wretched example for his public (and their kids), showed that he has allowed his alcohol problem to render him unfit to serve, and violated a pledge he had made in 2009 (when he was running for office) that he had given up drinking for good, now argues that the incident is irrelevant. He says that what matters is who can bring the most jobs back to Sheboygan. Continue reading →

Creating Captain Costanzas

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Metaphor

I think I stopped finding George Costanza funny when I saw the “Seinfeld” episode in which he panicked at a kids party after smelling smoke and trampled the children rushing to be the first out the door. (His callous reaction to his fiancée’s death from licking envelopes had paved the way for my inability to laugh at George.) The thought of a real-life George Costanza, the most unethical character on a show about unethical characters, serving as the captain of an imperiled ship full of passengers is horrifying, but that’s basically what befell the unsuspecting tourists on board the cruise ship that tipped over after hitting a rock off the coast of Italy. Having caused the accident, it appears, by irresponsibly changing course, captain Francesco Schettino hit the life boats before most of his passengers, and claimed to be directing the evacuation from the relative safety of a lifeboat as he defied orders from the Italian Coast Guard to return to the ship. Continue reading →

Young, Gullible, Lazy, Unimaginative and Unbelievable: I Wonder Why This Lawyer Has Trouble Finding A Job?

/ Jack Marshall / 135 Comments

Well, clearly “sign-maker” isn’t an option…

I have some observations regarding this unemployed lawyer’s lament as he Occupies Wall Street.

It is true that many law schools have been exposed lately for inflating their employment statistics. The American Bar Association announced last month that it was drafting a rule including sanctions for law schools that intentionally falsify jobs data, possibly including monetary fines or the loss of accreditation. That is as it should be.

Nonetheless, I am dubious about the sign’s 99.9% claim, especially in the absence of a named institution. Promising 100% employment to any group seems excessive, and a person of normal intelligence would, or certainly should be skeptical. Thus, after only the first line, I am dubious about the candor and/or judgment of the sign-holder.

I am also dubious about his account of his conversation with the Dean. Do you know what the unemployment rate was for lawyers in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Labor? Continue reading →

Character, American Values and the Defiant Driver

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

"Drive, you say? OK, jerk, I'll drive. Watch THIS!!!"Character, the good kind, is a foundation of traits, instincts and values that support, inspire and activate ethical conduct.

A person may know the right thing to do, but without the courage to do it, it will not get done. Empathy, similarly, is a necessary quality if the Golden Rule is going to be any guidance at all. Determination and diligence are not ethical by themselves, for one can be determined and diligent in the pursuit of evil ends. Not applying diligence to a task one has taken on, however, will lead to a breach of trust. Although they are not exactly components of what we call character, intelligence and common sense are essential to the character trait of competence, which in turn is indispensable to behaving ethically, for it is difficult to make ethical decisions without the ability to make good decisions.

I was prompted to think about the links between character and ethics when I read a news story out of Kansas City. A woman driving her car in traffic was stunned when a man suddenly jumped on the hood of her vehicle, pointed a gun at her, and told her to drive. Continue reading →

Would Dennis Rodman Qualify for the Baseball Hall of Fame?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Dennis Rodman, out of uniform

Of course not. Dennis Rodman didn’t play baseball. He was a pro basketball player, and as of yesterday, an inductee into the NBA Hall of Fame for his exploits on a basketball court. There is no question that he is eminently qualified for admission to the NBA Hall of Fame, because the NBA Hall of Fame doesn’t care if players are thugs, drunks, scofflaws, deadbeat dads and couldn’t define sportsmanship with a dictionary as long as they can shoot, score, pass, dribble and block shots.

The Major League Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, however, requires that its members demonstrate “integrity, sportsmanship, (and) character,” in addition to outstanding achievements and a remarkable career record.  Because of the steroid era that has rendered a whole generation of players suspect for cheating, an expanding number of baseball greats face being excluded from the Hall because cheating by using substances that are illegal and banned in the sport while implicitly deceiving the public about the use is, by any rational definition, a material breach of integrity and sportsmanship.  The natural reaction by many sportswriters, as in other fields when reasonable standards are routinely violated, is to attack the standards. Why should a sport care about matters like integrity and character? Isn’t it the performance that counts, and winning? Continue reading →

Robert E. Lee and the Abuse of Principle

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Lee: Use his life as a warning, not an inspiration.

As both political parties and the President of the United States seem to be determined to subject the American people, economy and standing in the world to disaster in the defense of principles, it might be a good time to reflect on the fact that principles detached from reality have little value, and that rigidly adhering to principles to the detriment of the community and civilization is not a virtue.

In the current issue of Humanities, historian James Cobb makes these points vividly, if tangentially, while reflecting on the odd reverence with which Americans, and not just Southerners, regard Robert E. Lee. I am proud to say that the lionization of Lee never made sense to me, not even when I was a small boy. But he is the epitome of someone who is revered as a role model and hero for his supposed character and values rather than what he actually did with them.*

Cobb begins his essay with this anecdote:  Continue reading →

Rep. Wu and the Scourge of Government by Ventriloquist Dummies

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I have a 90% completed post tentatively entitled “Why We Are Doomed” sitting in my drafts file, and I can’t bring myself to finish or post it. I don’t want to believe we are doomed, so the Golden Rule keeps telling me that I shouldn’t be trying to convince others we are doomed. I believe in hope. I believe that cultures, especially this culture, can do the right thing and still be successful, provided that they can find leaders and role models who represent and encourage ethical values.

On the other hand, I really do believe we, that is to say, the United States of America, are probably doomed.

A story unfolding now, a sad saga that has really been unfolding for a long time, illustrates one of the factors I lament over in my languishing draft. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) has been accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend. We have to be careful here, but there seems to be little doubt that the “encounter” occurred.  The Oregonian has reported that sources aware of the incident say that Congressman Wu, who is 56, “acknowledged a sexual encounter to his senior aides but insisted it was consensual.”

Wu has been a train wreck waiting to happen for a long, long time. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Derek Jeter

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Roger Clemens is now on trial facing perjury charges. Barry Bonds has been convicted of obstruction of justice. Pacman Jones has just been arrested again; Tiger Woods hasn’t won a golf tournament since he was exposed as a serial adulterer. Through the travails and embarrassments of all of these and many more tarnished athletes who were once looked upon as cultural heroes, Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter has remained a constant— a team player, a clutch player, and an undeniably great player who has maintained his integrity and high values of competition and sportsmanship, never betraying the trust of his fans, his city, his team, or his game.

Yesterday Jeter reached 3000 hits, the watermark of the greatest of the greats, becoming the only lifetime New York Yankee to do so. He achieved the magic number with the flair only special players can muster, rising to a grand occasion like Ted Williams, hitting a home run in his final at bat, or Cal Ripken, marking  his passing of Lou Gehrig’s “iron man” record for consecutive games with a homer. Yesterday, Jeter passed 3000 in a rush, going 5 for 5 with the hit # 3000 being, yes, a round-tripper. Continue reading →

Attention FCC: What the News of the World Scandal Reveals About Rupert Murdoch

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Rupert Murdoch

Concluding that the News of the World scandal in Great Britain shows that Rupert Murdoch has less than a sufficient reverence for ethics, journalistic or otherwise, is an intellectual achievement well within the powers of Forrest Gump.  Concerns about the integrity of the Australian media magnate have been voiced since he first stuck his kangaroo’s nose in the American media tent. As is too often the case here, legitimate points were minimized by their linkage to political bias: was Murdoch bad for American journalism because he was unethical, or because he was conservative? His most vocal critics, being from the Left, regard the two as the same, which allowed Murdoch to accumulate defenders on the political right who should have been just as wary of his methods and ethical deficit.

Now his flagship tabloid, The News of the World, has folded in the midst of a still-unfolding scandal. You can read details here; the important thing to know is that the tabloid was essentially lawless. Continue reading →