compassion

From The “When Ethics Alarms Are Devoured By Hysteria And Partisan Hate” Files: Jezebel Readers React To The JetBlue Harassment Of Ivanka Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

love-hateHere are some comments reacting to the JetBlue incident from Jezebel, the feminist website. These are not the outliers. These are typical. I’ve checked some of the other progressive sites.  At Talking Points Memo, the consensus seems to be that it’s “fake news.” So far, the vast majority of the coverage is from conservative sites. Most of the left partisan sites don’t report embarrassing conduct by their compatriots if they can avoid it….or perhaps they just don’t want to inspire comments like these.

Jezebel’s blogger set the tone by invoking the “Tit for Tat” and “They had it coming” rationalizations with this coda to the post:

Given Donald Trump’s unabashed love of heckling people in front of a crowd—he singled out NBC reporter Katy Tur so many times she had to get Secret Service protection—I’m just surprised the administration didn’t give Lasner’s husband a cabinet seat right then and there.

From the comments…

I know i’m supposed to feel bad for Ivanka, but I can’t. Fuck her. Fuck her husband. They are going to make billions off the american taxpayer and have no shame or remorse or anything resembling human emotions. I might feel the slightest bit of pity for the kids, except then I remember they’re all fucking rich and will get whatever their bratty asses demand for their entire lives. So i guess i’ll save my concern for the millions of men and women of various races, creeds and sexual orientations whose lives will begin to become progressively worse on January 20th.

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She knew exactly what she was doing and what the potential outcomes were from flying commercial. Part of me thinks Bannon set this up so this exact incident would occur and everyone would feel sorry for lil Vanky.

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FUCK THAT NOISE.

If I saw a Trumpsatzgruppen member on a flight, I would be in jail right now, b/c I would not shut the fuck up about it the entire flight.

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Seriously. Let’s not forget:

— At last count, 838 products in Ivanka Trump’s line, and not a single one made in the US.

— She’s already used her father’s position to further her business by selling dresses and jewelry, and she’s sat in on meetings with leaders of countries in which her business stands to benefit.

— It took more than a year for employees at her company to convince her to establish a maternity policy; she told one employee that when she had her baby, she was only out of the office for a week (she neglected to mention her in-home nanny when explaining this).

— For several months now she’s posted a job on her site for a Freelance Graphic Designer, a full-time job, Monday through Friday, 9-6. But as freelance, this person will not receive any benefits, including healthcare and maternity leave; and the contract is month to month, allowing Ivanka Trump’s company to cut that person loose at any time with zero notice. That’s some fine job creation right there.

In short, fuck Ivanka Trump. She’s a hypocrite just like her father, and while I would try to find a way of doing it without getting kicked off a plane, I’d have no problem telling her so.

***

Yeah the French should have just said “This cake is really good, don’t upset the Queen.” Or the people of Boston should have just drank the tea and asked politely to not be taxed. Fuck the trumps, they should be called out at every opportunity.

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Going high hasn’t worked for us since what – 2000? i am sick of it. i am sick of us having to be the reasonable, rational ones. fuck all of that. they go low and they win. they go low and they obstruct a president for an entire 8 years. it is time to go low.

***

Fuck her and her three small children.

From The “When Ethics Alarms Ring” Files: The Saga Of The Kind Repo Man

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

car-paid-off

Jim Ford is a repo man, the co-owner of Illini Recovery Inc., a company in Southern Illinois. Pat and Stanford Kipping were in arrears in the monthly payments for their car, a 1998 Buick, and he was engaged to repossess it.

The past due amount  was about $350, and the payment amount was $95 a month. The Kippings are elderly retirees, and when he met with them in their home, his task became more and more unpalatable. “I had to get the hell out of there,” he recalled. He was feeling more guilty by the second, and was especially bothered by their explanation that health care costs, especially rising prescription drug expenses, caused them to fall behind on their payments. Ford could see himself in that same dilemma some day.

The Golden Rule can be a bitch.

He felt so badly about taking the car that he stopped to phone a bank official only a block  or so after seizing the car, and asked if he could just pay off the whole loan on the couple’s behalf. That, he learned, would be a red tape nightmare. Instead, Ford followed a friend’s advice and  launched an online fundraising effort in his own name. That attracted support from Ford’s friends and business associates, and in about 24 hours, the appeal had raised the necessary amount, and more.

The Kippings got their car returned and completely paid for, along with an oil change, detailing, and repairs. They also received an extra $1,000, and the week of Thanksgiving, the gift of a turkey from Jim Ford and his friends. When Ford arrived to deliver the car, family members,neighbors and a reporter from a local paper were waiting to be part of the moment.

“They were really really happy,” Ford said. “I don’t know. I was just glad I could help somebody out.”

When ethics alarms ring, good things  happen.

 

Ethics Quiz: Trump’s Tweet On Fidel’s Demise

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

castro-tweet-trump

We are taught to speak only good of the dead in the immediate aftermath of one’s demise, and especially in the world of international diplomacy, restraint, respect and the Golden Rule are the accepted standards of ethical conduct on such occasions

This being the case, what is the right ethical diagnosis of President Elect Donald Trump’s tweet above about the announcement of Fidel Castro’s death, which includes an explanation point widely interpreted to suggest “GOOD!” of “Yippee!” ? Trump’s subsequent statement removed all doubt that he was not sorry to see Fidel go to that big sugar cane plantation in the sky, or better yet, well, you know:

“Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades,’ Mr Trump’s statement reads. “Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights. “While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve. Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. I join the many Cuban-Americans who supported me so greatly in the presidential campaign, including the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association that endorsed me, with the hope of one day soon seeing a free Cuba.”

Contrast that with President Obama’s equivocal statement, which said in part,

“We know that this moment fills Cubans — in Cuba and in the United States — with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”

Then there was former President Jimmy Carter, who said,

“Rosalynn and I share our sympathies with the Castro family and the Cuban people on the death of Fidel Castro. We remember fondly our visits with him in Cuba and his love of his country. We wish the Cuban citizens peace and prosperity in the years ahead.”

Hmmmm!

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for this Thanksgiving Day weekend:

Were Trump’s tweet and statement about Castro responsible, prudent and ethical?

I think so, and I’m surprised at my own response. I suppose I am tired of seeing and hearing public figures lie when everyone knows they are lying, and if Carter and Obama really don’t think Castro was a brutal, murderous dictator whose departure is a blessing to all, then the Democratic Party is in even worse shape than I thought it was.

I have a hard Left friend who actually expressed praise for Castro’s legacy today on Facebook. When a figure who is objectively and factually as bad as Castro was, our leaders should not hesitate to be frank and direct. Obama’s non-commital “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him” is cowardly and evasive. Yes, and if history judges that Fidel’s ends justified his means, then civilization is doomed. Carter’s statement is even worse. “His love of his country”—that’s mitigation for oppression and murder, eh, Jimmy? If love of country your standard, you and Rosalyne must love Hitler.

Trump’s excessive candor and rogue mouth obviously are going to do a lot of damage in the next four years, just as they did during the campaign. Nonetheless, I don’t see anything unethical about calling a murderous dictator when he was, whether it’s on the day of his death or ten years later. This is one time when Trump’s refusal to be politically correct cuts through crap that should be cut through. As Edgar says at the end of “King Lear,”

“We should speak what we feel, not what we ought to say,”

…at least when bastards like Castro die.

Rather than using the occasion to find another excuse to attack Trump, Democrats should think about why it is that so many Castro admirers are in their ranks.

 

From The “Rules Are Rules” Files: China’s “No Arms, No Loans” Policy

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments
Don't be afraid of Wu, you banks! He's completely armless!.

Don’t be afraid of Wu, you banks! He’s completely armless!.

Just when you are tempted to think the United States leads humanity in outrageous bureaucratic rigidity and the refusal to make sensible exceptions when common sense and decency demand it, a story like this one comes across the wires to restore one’s faith that cruelty and stupidity are universal.* That’s something to be thankful for…isn’t it?

Maybe not.

Wu Jianping, a 25-year-old teacher from Zhengzhou in the Henan province of China, told the news media there that banks have denied his application for a mortgage loan because he had inadequate identification.  Banks in China require fingerprints for loans, and Wu has no fingers. In fact, he has no arms, having lost both of them when he was electrocuted in an accident at the age of five.

Jianping says he typically writes his signature by holding a pen in his mouth, but banks rejected his loan applications on the grounds that his written signature can be easily imitated, presumably by anyone holding a pen in his mouth, and they don’t accept toeprints.

“Fingerprinting is a common practice because signatures can be imitated, but there is no way to copy a fingerprint,” one bank employee was quoted as saying. Ah. And just how does someone impersonate a loan applicant with no arms? How many 25 year-old teachers without arms are there in China, anyway? Are people always coming up to Wu Jianping in the streets of Beijing, where he works, and telling him, “I’m sorry! I mistook you for someone else” ?

The banks are receiving widespread criticism online and in social media, with many writing that demanding fingerprints from an armless man is unreasonable. Gee, ya think? Let’s have a panel discussion about it. Now some of the banks are apparently relenting. That’s generous of them.

I bet George Bailey would have given Wu a loan…

[Ethics Alarms will now open up the thread to all the terrible jokes anyone wants to submit, as my Thanksgiving gift to the readership. I might as well, since I know you will make them anyway. I reserve the one in the caption, one of my all-time favorites, and also “Well, they can’t accuse him of asking for a hand-out!”, because I wanted to write it first, and it’s my blog, so there. But there are a lot more. A lot.]

*One of the very first posts on Ethics Alarms highlighted a similar episode in an American bank. [Thanks to Tex for reminding me!]

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Pointer: Fark

 

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Hero Emeritus: Edna Gladney (1888-1961)”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

edna-gladney

I love when a well-considered comment is entered on an older post. It draws my attention back to topics I may have forgotten about, and as in the case of this Comment of the Day, it reminds me of people and things I really shouldn’t forget.

Rebecca, in her first visit to the comments wars, entered this reaction to the post about Edna Gladney (that’s her on the right above, with Greer Garson, her screen avatar, on the left), an amazing woman who should be better known than she is for her  pioneering work on behalf of orphans and unwed mothers. I suggest that you read the post about Edna first, and then read Rebecca’s Comment of the Day. Here it is:

I just recently saw the TCM movie and was instantly taken by her courage and perseverance, especially since I, too, consider myself a child and family advocate. However, once I read about the historical Gladney, I am saddened that Hollywood thought it necessary to change the storyline to “soften” the blow of Edna’s own illegitimacy. Just goes to show how much was (and still is) wrong with the media. Also goes to show how media perpetuates certain attitudes about our societal issues. For example, even though the movie was retrospect, and even though Gladney may have been successful in removing illegitimate designations on birth certificates, society itself was still hell bent on being judgmental….couldn’t even tell the story like it was for fear it wouldn’t be accepted.

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Ethics Heroes: North Carolina Democrats

/ Jack Marshall / 66 Comments

gop-firebombing

Someone firebombed a Republican Party office in North Carolina over the weekend, and added some graffiti telling “Nazi Republicans” to leave town. Police are investigating; I don’t know why, since Donald Trump, responsible and fair as ever, already announced that the Clinton campaign did it.

trump-tweet-ncInspired by a tweet from University of North Carolina’s School of Information Science’s Zeynep Tufekci, David Weinberger of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Technology launched a campaign on GoFundMe to rebuild the ruined office. He wrote on the fund’s page,
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Meet Crenshanda Williams, The 911 Operator Who Hangs Up On Callers When She Just Doesn’t Feel Like Talking To People

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

911-operator

After reading about Crenshanda Williams, I’ve been pondering what would constitute a worse match of temperament, attitude, competence and basic job responsibilities. It will be hard to top her. A Houston 911 call center operator, Crenshanda is now under arrest, but not before she hung up on thousands of emergency callers mid emergency.

On one call, she hung up on the caller mid-sentence, saying, “Ain’t nobody got time for this. For real.”  That occurred  as a driver attempted to report trucks racing on the highway. The citizen identified himself when Williams picked up his call and began telling her, “I’m driving 45 South right now and right now, I am at …”

Click. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: “Mama Betty”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

pitchess

In Los Angeles, six thousands of LA County prisoners are housed in Pitchess Detention Center, which is 50 miles from the inner city neighborhoods where most of the prisoners there live. Using public transportation, which is what most friends and family members must use to reach Pitchess, the journey can take up to five hours to visit an inmate for 30 minutes, through a glass window, with no physical contact. The closest bus stop is a mile away from the jail, and at the bottom of a steep hill.

For five years, a woman named Betty Peters, now 76, has picked up visitors at that bus stop and driven them to the prison. She also waits for the women (mostly) to finish their visits, and drives them back to the bus stop. The grateful visitors know her as “Mama Betty.”

This is an act of pure compassion and kindness, and not without its risks. If a visitor tries to smuggle in contraband, drugs or a weapon,Betty could be prosecuted as an accomplice. Nor does she know the character of those whom she ferries from the jail to the bus and back. Might she be at risk of harm herself? I would assume so. Those with criminals as friends and associates are more likely to be criminals themselves.

I hope this story has a happy ending, because every time kindness like this is returned with cruelty and exploitation, the number of Mama Bettys among us is diminished, and our society becomes a little more meaner, more callous, and less ethical.

Ethics Alarms salutes Betty Peters as an Ethics Hero…and worries.

You can hear a podcast about Mama Betty here.

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Pointer: Fred.

A Moral Luck-Riddled Ethics Quiz: The Compassionate, Correct, Fired Police Officer

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

man-pointing-a-gunI have solicited opinions from some police authorities , and have yet to receive an answer. Maybe that’s cheating, though.

On May 6 of this year,  Weirton, West Virginia police officer Stephen Mader confronted a distraught and armed man after responding to a domestic violence call. “I saw then he had a gun, but it was not pointed at me,”  Mader told reporters. A silver pistol was in 23-year-old Ronald Williams’ right hand, hanging at his side and pointed at the ground.

Officer Mader calmly told Williams to put down the gun. “Just shoot me, ” Williams  responded, and jerked his wrists, suggesting that he was preparing to raise his weapon. “I’m not going to shoot you brother, ” replied Mader.

“I thought I was going to be able to talk to him and de-escalate it. I knew it was a suicide-by-cop,” he said.

Then two other Weirton officers arrived on the scene. Williams walked toward them waving his gun, and one of Mader’s colleagues shot Williams in the head, killing him instantly.

A West Virginia State Police investigation later concluded that the shooting was justified. Mader, in the meantime, faced an investigation of his own. In a meeting with his chief and the city manager,  Mader was told that he was being placed on administrative leave, and that an investigation would determine if he would still be employed.  “You put two other officers in danger,” the police chief told him.

Following the investigation, Mader received a notice of termination stating that by not shooting Williams, Mader“failed to eliminate a threat.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Was it fair and responsible for the department to fire Officer Mader as a result of this incident?

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Here…This Should Wash Ryan Lochte And Hope Solo Out Of Your Brain

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

sportsmanship

In a women’s 5,000 meter heat in Rio earlier this week, Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand fell and tripped up American Abbey D’Agostino in the process. D’Agostino got up, helped Hamlin to her feet, and both finished roughly two minutes behind first place.

The two women  didn’t know each other and had never spoken before the race, with both seeking a place in the final. With 4½ of the 12½ laps remaining, they collided so quickly that Hamblin was stunned momentarily.  “When I went down I was like ‘Why am I on the ground’ and suddenly there was this hand on my shoulder,” Hamblin said.

The hand belonged to D’Agostino.  “Come on, get up,” the American was saying. “We have to finish this race.”

And they did.

After the race, this happened:

Olymoic hugs

 

You know I think the Olympics are now bloated, venal, corrupt hypocritical reality TV programming at the expense of their hosts, substantially participated in by arrogant jerks like Hope Solo and Ryan Lochte, but even I have to applaud when genuine sportsmanship, compassion, selflessness and human caring breaks out like this.

Now will someone explain what Slate writer Justin Peters’ problem is, as expressed in his piece, I’m Starting to Hate That Moment When Olympic Runners Helped Each Other to the Finish Line?

What did he want D’Agostino to do, kick the New Zealander and step on her face as she started running again?

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Pointer: Slate

Source: USA Today