communities

Letting Homes Burn in Obion County: Re-send the Memo

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

"I'll pay the $75 now."

Just in time for Christmas, we have the heart-warming story—or just plain “warming”—of the South Fulton (Tennessee) Fire Department once again standing by as someone’s home burns down.  Ethics Alarms wrote about this  outfit doing the same thing in 2010, following Obion County policy: pay the yearly $75 fire department fee, or be prepared to put out your own damn fires.

In 2010, it was the home of a cheapskate named Gene Cranick, who, like the people who can afford health insurance but don’t buy it anyway, figured that his  community would still do the right thing if the worst happened, so he gambled to save the money.  The South Fulton Fire Department did the right thing, all right, at least according to Obion County officials. They let his house go up in flames.

This time, it was mobile home owner Vicky Bell whose dumb gamble backfired.  Continue reading →

Let Us Not Forget Itawamba County, Miss.

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I am haunted second thoughts about awarding Obion County the title of Unethical Community of the Year.

For one thing, it is only October, and there is a lot of time for another unethical community or more to reveal its lack of decency to the nation and the world (and then to have Keith Olbermann declare that it represents the ideal for Tea Partiers). Still, I am having a hard time imagining anything worse for an American community than directing its fire department to let a human being’s home burn down, whether or not the homeowner has three dogs and a cat (as Mr. Cranick did, and I emphasize did), because that human being didn’t pay a $75 fee.

The real reason I am having doubts, however, is the horrible tale that came to light this past spring.  Continue reading →

Fire Fighting in Obion County, Unethical Community of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

In Obion County, Tennessee, a man’s home burned to the ground as the local fire department refused to do anything about it. The homeowner, Gene Cranick, had refused to pay a County fee for fire control services from the neighboring city of South Fulton. It was understood that only homeowners paying the fee would be provided assistance by the fire department, but Cranick, the sly fox, decided to test the system. Not only did he start burning rubbish in his back yard, he let the fire spread to his home. Then, in a panic, he dialed 911 and offered to pay whatever it would take for the South Fulton firefighters to put out the flames…but was told it was too late.  They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning down. They did arrive to help put out the fire when it spread to Cranick’s neighbor’s home, but then he had paid the $75. Continue reading →

“Welcome to AshleyMadison Stadium!”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

In an inspired bit of P.R. wizardry, the adultery-facilitating website AshleyMadison.com has made a serious bid for “naming rights” for New Meadowlands Stadium, the just-completed new home of the N.F.L.’s Jets and Giants. The site’s founder, Noel Biderman, has sent a letter to the CEO of New Meadowlands stating that they “are prepared to make a preliminary offer … of $25,000,000 for the Naming Rights for a five-year term” and would match any higher offer by other parties.

The N.F.L. isn’t going to let one of its stadiums be named after an adultery website, as Biderman well knows. But maybe Biderman has done the N.F.L. a favor by slapping it across the face and giving it a chance to avoid the venal, values-abandoning path that Major League Baseball adopted more than a decade ago when it allowed teams to sell naming rights of its new parks and stadiums to the highest corporate bidder, turning venues for classic sporting contest into billboard for banks, fly-by-night dotcoms and worse. Continue reading →

Abuse of Power in the Schools, Part 1: Pimping the Kids

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Blogger-mom Laura Wellington is making the talk show rounds after a post last month on her blog aroused interest and commentary from various newspapers. In the post, she indignantly described a fundraising drive by her child’s school that understandably raised her ire:

“…the letter [my daughter] handed me stated my daughter was to accomplish chores around the house with the goal of being paid by me for those chores the sum of $20.  She would then have to hand the full $20 over to the school to make up for the shortfall in their overall budget which, ultimately, disallowed the kids to go on yet another class trip.  Participation was mandatory according to what my daughter told me and the letter seemingly conveyed (however, on a later phone call, my daughter’s teacher altered the word “mandatory” to be “suggested” despite all evidence to the contrary)…”

Wellington’s complaint is that schools need to exercise fiscal responsibility, and she is joining a rising chorus of protest among parents across the country who feel that their tax dollars should not have to be supplemented with constant arm-twisting from schools urging them  to buy and sell over-priced cookies or provide additional contributions. This is a fiscal policy issue; the ethical issue should be less controversial. When did schools get the authority to dictate what children do outside school? How do they justify requiring unpaid labor for the school’s benefit? Continue reading →