(I was hoping to get Sidney Wang out one more time before New Years…)
Perla Aguilar, 27, was arrested for DUI in Oklahoma, and had an excuse she apparently thought would clear everything up. Slurring her words as she spoke, Perla explained to the arresting officers that she should be in the clear because she “does this all the time.”
That clip has nothing to do with ethics, but it makes me laugh every time I see it, and then makes me angry because John Belushi threw his life away.
1. Not that I need more reasons to avoid watching soccer, but the U.S. Soccer Federation’s National Council formally voted to repeal a policy that required players to stand for the National Anthem. That’s right: athletes representing the United States of America are now permitted to show disrespect for the nation they are representing while appearing in foreign countries, in which such useless grandstanding as taking a knee during the Anthem are meaningless and confusing to non-American audiences. At the Zoom meeting in which the vote was taken, USSF president Cindy Parlow Cone embraced Rationalization #64 (“It isn’t what it is”) by caliming that the policy repeal wasn’t in any way intended to disrespect the flag or the military. “This is about the athletes’ and our staff’s right to peacefully protest racial inequalities and police brutality,” she said. “So I urge our membership to please support our staff and our athletes on this policy.”
She’s an ignorant fool, or she’s lying. The team has no “right” to protest on the playing field, before or during games, while representing the United States. This is just more cowardly woke capitulation. Anyone who says they are protesting racial inequalities and police brutality should be asked to specify 1) exactly what inequality they are protesting, 2) what instance of police brutality, and 3) how their grandstanding accomplishes anything that substantively addresses the issues.
2. Regarding Donald Trump’s speech at CPAC…I don’t want to have to write all this stuff all over again. If Trump tries to make another run for the Republican nomination, or, worse, launch a third party bid, he will be causing incalculable damage to the nation purely to satisfy his own ego. Go back to the posts here when he announced his short-lived candidacy in 2012. This is one reason I am hoping he takes the route of running for a House seat to exact his revenge. He’ll do less damage there, and Andrew Johnson will have some company in the history books for returning to Congress after being impeached.
Colorado Rep. Dan Pabon (D. North Denver) was considered a rising political star. Among his well-publicized public policy triumphs was to help pass a law forcing convicted drunk drivers to appear before a DUI victim-impact panel.
Then Pabon himself was pulled over in his vehicle on St. Patrick’s Day evening for driving under the influence of alcohol. Instead of Pabon accepting his fate as an honest lawyer and elected official should, the video of the stop shows the legislator trying to persuade the officer who stopped him not to make the arrest. He tells the officer that he is a state representative who is driving a car without his legislative plates. He asks the officer to call a supervisor or the city attorney so they can direct the officer to give him mulligan. When Officer Brian Bienemann explains that he cannot let Pabon off and indeed would be subject to discipline if he did, Pabon pleads, “Is there any way we can avoid this possibility? This is going to change my life.”
After Pabon pleaded guilty and gave an emotional apology (above) to the public and the legislature, saying “I have taken full responsibility. I have done everything above board,” the editors of The Denver Post begged to disagree. They called for his resignation in an edotorial. They were correct, but they weren’t clear enough about why.
The Post was upset that Pabon didn’t specifically apologize for trying to use abuse his position and power to avoid legal accountability for a serious violation of the law, even after the video of the stop was leaked to the news media. Of course he didn’t. Like most current elected officials, he didn’t see anything wrong with that. Don’t they deserve special consideration and privileges?
There can be no sufficient apology for what Pabon did. Elected officials and other government personnel must not view themselves as deserving special immunity from the laws and regulations they impose on society. Pabon’s attitude and attempt to play the “Do you know who I am?” card is poison to democracy, and exactly the kind of “fix” Donald Trump’s speech last night correctly condemned.
The public sees a Secretary of State expose sensitive information to discovery by the enemies of the United States, and not only is she not punished, she is selected to run for President. The public sees HUD Secretary Julian Castro blatantly violate the Hatch Act, combining an official appearance with campaigning for Clinton, and then learns that the President will not discipline Castro in any way. Casrto is also considered a “rising political star.” A nation in which individuals who break the law are still considered “rising stars” and prospects for national leadership has its values in a tangle. Continue reading
How can you get disbarred for reporting a drunk driver? Three Florida lawyers were up to the task.
Stephen Diaco, Robert Adams and Adam Filthaut were found to have “maliciously” set up the drunken-driving arrest of their opposing counsel in a high-profile defamation trial, and Judge W. Douglas Baird, the referee in their legal ethics case, wrote that Stephen Diaco, Robert Adams and Adam Filthaut should lose their licenses permanently under the legal ethics standards of the Florida Bar.
In 2013, C. Philip Campbell was representing radio shock jock Todd “MJ” Schnitt in his slander suit against another DJ, “Bubba the Love Sponge” Clem. Clem was represented by the Adams and Diaco law firm. Campbell left court and went to Malio’s Steakhouse in downtown Tampa, near his home and office. While Campbell was at the eatery, he was spotted by Melissa Personius, a young paralegal who worked for Adams and Diaco.
According to testimony, Personius called her boss, Adams, to report that Campbell was in the restaurant. Then Personius sat next to Campbell and the two bought each other drinks. As the night proceeded, Personius periodically relayed information to Adams. Adams then contacted Diaco and Diaco constacted Filthaut to agree upon next steps. The key was that Filthaut was friends with Sgt. Raymond Fernandez, who was then head of the Tampa police DUI unit, thus was able to sic the DUI unit on the unsuspecting opposing counsel, who was in the process of being plied with liquor by Adams and Diaco’s attractive paralegal.
When it was time to for the targeted lawyer to leave, Campbell told Personius that she was too tipsy to drive and offered to call her a cab. Personius protested that she didn’t want to leave her car at the restaurant overnight and asked Campbell if he would move the car for her. “Of course,” he said, nice guy that he is. As Campbell drove her vehicle up the street, he made an illegal turn and was pulled over by Fernandez officers, who were lying in wait. He was arrested and charged with DUI. Continue reading
When they take the field in Spring Training and for the rest of the 2015 baseball season, the St. Louis Cardinals will be wearing a memorial patch reading “OT” in honor of outfielder Oscar Taveras, the 22-year-old budding star outfielder who died in a car crash in his native Dominican Republic last October. Such mourning patches have become common since 1972, when the Pittsburgh Pirates moved beyond the traditional black armband to a personalized patch following the tragic death of the team’s Hall of Fame outfielder Roberto Clemente in a plane crash, as he was flying humanitarian aid to Nicaragua.
Taveras, however, unlike Clemente, died in an act of reckless stupidity that took not only his own life but that of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Edilia Arvelo, as well. Toxicology tests showed that his blood alcohol level was five times the legal limit before the crash. situation is more complex because toxicology tests showed that his blood alcohol level at the time of his death was five times the legal limit. Moreover, Taveras’, also was killed in the crash. If Taveras had lived and Arvelo alone had died, he would have been prosecuted for manslaughter.
And thus your first Ethics Alarms Baseball Ethics Quiz of 2015 is this:
Is it ethical for the Cardinals to publicly honor Taveras with a uniform patch?
You have to admit, the kid takes a great mugshot…
Sure, why wouldn’t a multinational athletic shoe company want an irresponsible, sociopathic drunken creep as the face of its product?
With any half-ethical company, the news that the celebrity it is paying a fortune to endorse its wares to consumers has just completed a six month period of embarrassments with an arrest for drag-racing under the influence would be followed immediately with a pink slip and an apology. Not Adidas.
No, despite the news of the continued unraveling of the 19-year-old Justin Bieber,—previously seen egging his next door neighbor’s home—who seems determined to emulate the worst of spoiled child idol cautionary tales, Adidas announced that Bieber is still their boy, which means that it is still promoting him as an icon and role model, and officially communicating the position that a teen’s impaired driving is no big deal—certainly nothing to lower the teen’s status in the eyes of a major corporation. The company also signaled that it doesn’t care if its ethical shrug amounts to enabling and rewarding The Bieb’s self-destructive behavior, increasing the burgeoning odds that he ends up in the gutter, on a slab, or wort of all, in a pathetic reality show before he’s 30.
I know, I know: the company is taking a wait and see stance, which only means it is venal and irresponsible, and if Jeffrey Dahmer was their official Adidas-wearing superstar, and the kids who buy Adidas shoes didn’t care who he ate, Adidas would keep paying him millions too.
In these situations you only get one chance to show that you care about the values and conduct you endorse, and Adidas already missed it. It has no values.
But I guess most of us already knew that.
(I saw this coming, you know…)
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Sources: TMZ, The Province
…or Taylor Bigler, the DC’s Entertainment Editor…or both. Some jerk, individual or collective, thought that having an intentionally misleading headline on a story hundreds of thousands would read while skipping the article itself would be a hoot, even if it added PR and image problems to the troubled life of a young woman, Lindsay Lohan, desperately trying to get her career and mental health back on track. The headline…
It is accompanied by a photo (above) with the star’s face prominently displayed, and her mother shown in the background. Mom, Dina Lohan, was the one arrested, the story (authored by Bigler) explained. The incident reported had nothing to do with Lindsay Lohan, who by all accounts is clean, sober, employing a full-time sobriety coach and trying to overcome multiple substance abuse problems and the consequences of years of irresponsible conduct that have reduced her name to a punchline. Continue reading
…I will be on NPR. live, around 11:45 Pacific time as part of a discussion about the Matt Cordle video confession, which I posted about here.
The video is self-explanatory, I think.
I’m certain some will say that it is self-serving, that he made the video to try to minimize his punishment. This could be, and so what? The YouTube confession is still the best, most honest, most ethical, most courageous option that he had, once he had made the tragic and irresponsible decision to drive while intoxicated. Many, indeed most, and arguably all ethical acts have an element of self-serving in them. If they are right, they are right.
Imagine how much better society and the justice system would be if those who committed crimes fulfilled their societal duty to admit them, apologize, and accept their just punishment. Cordle, ironically, is not merely an Ethics Hero, but a role model.
Source: DNA
Hey, after he leaves politics, Don Dwyer has a future as a cruise captain…in HELL…
How is Maryland House of Delegates Member Don Dwyer unqualified to serve? Let us sing the ways:
1. Call him irresponsible… He piloted his 27 foot power boat, named “The Legislator,” while (allegedly, of course) roaring drunk, causing an accident and a wreck that resulted in injuries to seven people, including a five-year-old-girl. His trial is in October.
2. Call him unreliable… He also was recently arrested for DUI, resulting in fifteen charges including driving under the influence of alcohol, reckless and negligent driving, displaying expired and suspended registration, and driving 70 mph in a 55-mph zone.
3. Throw in undependable, too…Apparently Dwyer just can’t stand the stresses that go along with his position. He explained his boating accident to the Maryland Gazette by saying that the incident was caused by his escalation in drinking frequency after he separated from his wife, and as a result of feeling “betrayed’ when colleagues voted to sanction gay marriage.“I felt a tremendous amount of pressure in my family,” he said. “You take those personal issues (and) add betrayal on the professional side, and it really gets to be overwhelming.”
Mostly, call him unaccountable, which isn’t in the song lyrics, but fits this loser to a fare-thee-well. He’s driven dangerous vehicles twice under the influence, risking lives, and his response is to blame the gay marriage vote rather than his own failure to acknowledge and treat a serious alcohol problem. Law makers cannot be law breakers, especially the laws against operating vehicles drunk, which only require the sense and responsibility it takes to avoid getting behind the wheel.
Too many state legislators are inept when sober; we certainly don’t need drunk ones too.
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Pointer: Rick Jones
Sources: Maryland Gazette, Huffington Post
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