Imagine that your wife’s brother, who is also one of your best friends, is in trouble. He is ruining his health, career and reputation with habitual drug use and other self-destructive behavior. He seems to be deluded, yet his business associates and friends are enabling his behavior. A tragedy is unfolding, and no one seems to care.
What do you do? Continue reading
Beau Friedlander is a contributor to the Huffington Post who decided it was time to show just how vicious, uncivil and unhinged a committed progressive could be, there being ample evidence of these qualities on the other side of the political spectrum. So…
1. Friedlander wrote an angry and hate-filled rant slandering Tea Party members, Mormons, and Republicans and the American public generally;
2. He included, as the piece’s centerpiece, this:
“I hereby offer to negotiate a $100,000 payday to the person who will come forward with a sex tape or phone records or anything else that succeeds in removing Glenn Beck from the public eye forever. I am not offering the cash myself, but I will broker the deal and/or raise the money for what you bring to the table. (And it better be good.) If you have the goods, or if you want to contribute to a slush fund to buy more takedowns (probably not tax deductible), please contact me at: glennbecksextape@gmail.com.” Continue reading
You probably heard the story. About three weeks ago in Manhattan, ad executive Merrie Harris was approached by a homeless man who asked her for some spare change. Harris told the man, Jay Valentine, that she had no change, but offered to lend him her American Express Platinum Card if he would promise to return it. Valentine assured her he was trustworthy, and, incredibly, Harris gave him the card. He returned the card a short time later after a modest shipping spree that added twenty-five dollars to her bill. The New York media sang the praises of both Harris and Valentine, dubbing Harris “the Amex Angel” and calling the episode “a shining act of generosity, trust and honesty.”
I almost designated Wilson an Ethics Hero at the time, but something stopped me. I have been considering the implications of the strange story ever since. It may have been that shining act, but I’m not convinced it was even ethical. Is that possible? How can an act of generosity, trust, and kindness not be ethical? Continue reading
“And then one night
The kid in right
Lies sprawling in the dirt.
The fastball struck him square—he’s down!
Is Tony badly hurt?”
Just about everyone who lived in Boston, Massachusetts in 1967 knows that bit of doggerel, an epic poem written to commemorate the Boston Red Sox miracle “Impossible Dream” pennant that year. Tony, “the kid in right,” was Tony Conigliaro, or Tony C. for short, the 22-year-old Italian stud from nearby Swampscott who was ticketed for the Hall of Fame. Tony had everything: looks, talent, an adoring hometown public and a flair for the dramatic—everything but luck. On August 19, 43 years ago today, an errant pitch from Angels starter Jack Hamilton struck him in the face, nearly killing him. The beaning began a series of events that turned “The Tony Conigliaro Story” from a feel-good romp to an epic tragedy. He was never quite the same after the beaning, though he bravely played three more seasons with a hole in his vision he never told anyone about. He quit, tried pitching, actually made a second comeback that was derailed by injuries, and quit again. He was about to become the Red Sox cable TV color man when he suffered an inexplicable heart attack that left him brain-damaged and an invalid until his death, at only 45, in 1990.
Since 1967, there has been a storyline connected with Tony C.’s beaning, and it resurfaces every year. Let’s have an enthusiastic Red Sox blogger tell the tale: Continue reading
Among conservative radio talk show hosts, Sean Hannity holds a special niche. He is not as entertaining or audacious as Rush Limbaugh, nor as erudite and apoplectic as Mark Levin, nor as funny and acerbic as Laura Ingraham. Hannity is nice, or appears to be. His act (though it seems sincere), is to be reasonable and pleasant, even when under attack. Recently, however, he has been giving excessive air time to a middle-aged African-American caller who goes by the name of “Sister Rita X.” She is a strong, liberal supporter of President Obama, but more importantly, she is bats. Sister Rita not only sings the praises of Rev. Farrakhan, but believes that God has created a giant flying war machine that is designed to destroy the United States if it doesn’t change its ways.
Hannity seems to think it is amusing to his listeners for him to allow this opinionated, loud and deluded woman rant on in response to his goading. He also thinks, apparently, this it is a powerful indictment of progressive cant to have an advocate of sorts sound just as deranged as conservatives like Hannity believe all liberals really are. Hannity is using Sister Rita, mocking her while he features her, and encouraging her to be as bizarre as possible. “So tell me about this mother ship, or whatever it is, that is going to get us,” he asks. And she does. Continue reading
San Francisco is considering accessing its inner PETA by enacting a ban on a the sales of any pet with fur, hair or feathers, meaning that little Scotty will have to make do with a boa constrictor, an iguana or a guppy if he wants a non-human companion to cheer him through grade school. The measure began as a ban on pet store sales to stick it to unscrupulous puppy mills, then gradually morphed into a nearly China-like proposal to ban almost all pets. True, the city’s proposal would still allow the adoption of dogs and cats from shelters, but don’t bet on that being the final result. PETA-ism, once it gains a foothold, won’t be satisfied until we are all tofu-sated and pet-free.
A Los Angeles Times story on the public debate over the ban concentrated on the business angle, for pets are big business. This is, however, an effort by the city government to set ethical values and standards, a legitimate government role when necessary and reasonable. Protecting innocent and vulnerable animals is an important government function; the question is whether it is necessary to protect animals from those who love them as well as those who abuse them.
Well, why not? There are slippery slopes all over this issue, in all directions. Laws ban the sale of exotic animals like tigers, wolves and chimps in many jurisdictions, because keeping them in private captivity is viewed as inherently cruel. Hmmmm…more cruel than keeping Shamu in that small tank? More cruel than keeping a polar bear in a Washington D.C. zoo? The logic for banning birds and small mammals as pets is pretty much the same: it’s inherently cruel. Does the life of a hamster deserve as much protection as the life of a leopard? Why stop at hamsters, then?
Are ant farms cruel? ( I know what happened to mine, and I don’t want to talk about it…) Continue reading
http://www.donotvoteformydad.com raises interesting questions about the ethical duties of families versus the ethical duties of citizens, bias, conflict of interest, and the difficulty of distinguishing ethical from unethical or non-ethical motives. Continue reading
The New York Times has a provocative examination of the ways cyber-bullying and abusive social networking sites and posts are challenging schools and courts. It also exposes a particularly cruel Ethics Dunce, Evan S. Cohen.
In 2008, Cohen’s daughter videotaped her friends as they mocked and made vicious comments, some of them sexual about another eighth-grade girl. Then Cohen’s daughter posted the video on YouTube, traumatizing its victim. The school was alerted by the devastated girl’s parents, and then suspended Cohen’s daughter for two days.
Daddy, however, is an attorney, and he knows overstepping authority when he sees it. He sued the school district, arguing that the school couldn’t reach into his daughter’s off-campus activities and punish her for them. Of course, he was right, and won the lawsuit. He also won $107,150.80 in costs and lawyer fees. Continue reading
Actor/director Mel Gibson has been in a series of nasty public and private battles with Oksana Grigorieva, whom he is currently fighting in court for custody of their love-child. As part of her assault on his fitness as a father, Grigorieva secretly taped one of their emotional arguments and released it to the tabloid media. On the tape, Gibson calls her a number of names that aren’t in a gentleman’s vocabulary, but the pièce de résistance is this charming sentiment:
“You look like a fucking pig in heat and if you get raped by a pack of niggers it will be your fault.”
Your question is: Which is more unethical? Mel’s ugly words or Oksana’s taping and releasing them?
[Pause for “Jeopardy” music…] Continue reading
A strange tale in the New York Times, told by reporter Adam Liptak, raises a persistent problem of executive ethics. Is it unethical for a state governor to reject a recommendation of clemency based on strong evidence?
As Liptak tells it, it had been 28 years since Ronald Kempfert had seen his father, imprisoned in an Arizona prison in 1975 for a 1962 double murder, when a lawyer contacted Kempfert and told him that his father had been framed—by his mother. Nearly the entire case against the father, William Macumber, had been based on his wife’s testimony that he had confessed the murders to her. Kempfert, knowing his mother, and knowing the toxic state of their marital discord at the time of her testimony, agreed that she was quite capable of doing such a thing, and after doing some digging on his own, concluded that his father, now elderly and ailing, had been wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
There was more. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 