ethics alarms

EA Text Box Crash Update!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Breaking: I have heard from WordPress regarding the site malfunction yesterday that made commenting either a chore or impossible. This morning Happiness Engineer Gary P. wrote in an email,

“Hi Jack, thank you for your patience. I really appreciate you reporting this issue. It’s been very helpful! As my colleague mentioned, our team has identified this as a bug and is actively working on a permanent fix. The latest update from our developers is that the comment box should now be working again. I took a look at your site and can see that the text box appears to be functioning normally. I’ve also recorded a short video showing that typing is now possible: https://cloudup.com/c1W5oqw88Qm.

Whenever you have a moment, could you check from your end and let me know if everything is working as expected? Do note that while the text box is working, our developer is still actively looking for a cause for the issue itself, and what’s working now might not be perfect.

Let me know how it goes and if you have any other questions. I’d be happy to help.

Well, Gary had better be happy to help…he’s a Happiness Engineer!

I’m so sorry this happened yesterday. It obviously frustrated a lot of you and wasted your valuable time, as it did mine. If its any consolation, I deal with WordPress bugs constantly. I can no longer comment directly as a host on my own posts for example: I have to log in as a commenter. When I’m in the favored “Paragraph” block, I can’t post pictures or quotes. When I’m in the “classic “mode links don’t work. Recently, whole sentences just disappear while I’m finishing them. But that’s my problem. You shouldn’t have to deal with any posting issues. Again, I am sorry.

Special thanks are due to Diego Garcia and Alicia who blew the whistle on this right away via email.

Maybe I’ll be able to get some paying work done today, after I finish shoveling snow…

As If Any More Evidence Was Needed That NBC Has Dead Ethics Alarms…

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

NBC Olympics announcer Leigh Diffey got his call of the 100-meter dash gold medal win for Noah Lyles wrong. Lyles edged out Kishane Thompson of Jamaica by a 0.005 seconds to claim the USA’s first gold in the event since 2004. He incorrectly declared Thompson the winner on the live broadcast, which is understandable, since the two runners were also confused about who had won. Reportedly NBC planned to replay the full race again “with added context,” meaning that Diffey’s call will be “corrected.”

I’m hoping that some rogue staffer with functioning ethics alarms talked them out of it: so far, I can’t find the video of the replay or any commentary confirming that NBC went through with its plan as reported.

The fact that NBC Sports even considered doing it is ominous enough, however. An announcer’s call is part of the sporting event itself. Many calls that were later assessed as unprofessional (“THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THEY’RE GOING CRAZY! WWWEEEAAAHHHOOOOO!”) or incorrect nonetheless entered the Memorable Broadcasting Hall of Fame, or would have if there were such a place. The fact that Diffey reported the wrong runner as the victor just shows how close the finish was.

Does it not register on these people that the more they are caught covering up their own errors and mistakes, the less reason the public has to trust anything they show or say? Apparently not.

_____________________

Pointer: Curmie

A Rueful Note From Your Host…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I only got two posts up yesterday. That’s not acceptable, and I’m sorry. Ethics Alarms has a goal of registering four posts a day, come rain or shine, because even that level—it’s typically about 3,500 or more words a day, counting typos—doesn’t keep up. I don’t feel too badly when I can only manage three. Yesterday was a terrible day, beginning with the ordeal of having to deal with liars, incompetents and SOBs along with malicious technology as I tried to get an overdue waste water treatment bill handled. By the time what should have been a 15 minute process was over, it was after noon, Spuds was annoyed (I almost wrote “ticked” which has other meanings when a dog is the subject) and I was so furious and frustrated that I could hardly function.

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: The Congresswoman’s Prayer Breakfast Joke

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Outspoken freshman Congresswoman Nancy Mace, (R-SC), decided to throw away her prepared remarks and riff at the beginning of her speech at fellow South Carolinian Sen. Tim Scott’s prayer breakfast last week. That was her first mistake.

“When I woke up this morning at 7, I was getting picked up at 7:45, Patrick, my fiance, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed. And I was like, ‘No, baby, we don’t got time for that this morning,'” Mace began. “I gotta get to the prayer breakfast, and I gotta be on time.”

Yes, there’s nothing better to warm up the crowd at a prayer breakfast like a pre-marital sex joke!

Seriously, how hard is it to avoid making comments about sex at a prayer breakfast? She probably embarrassed Sen. Scott thoroughly, who was metaphorically batting second behind the nookie narrative in her remarks as she praised him profusely. Scott is running for President, however futilely, and doesn’t need any silly but completely avoidable controversies. Mace also probably made Seacoast Church Pastor Greg Surratt a little uncomfortable, who had honored both her and Scott as a part of his congregation.

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Ethics Quiz: The King Kong Cartoon

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

As Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot faced a humiliating defeat (and blamed racism for her fate), the conservative Townhall Media political cartoonist used the iconic scene from “King Kong” to lampoon her.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is the cartoon racist?

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I Don’t Know Exactly What This Story Signifies, But I’m Going To Write About It Anyway…

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis posted about her chairs on Instagram for some strange reason, and in so doing, revealed the creepy photograph she has hanging in her home. Conservatives, who have been in an art critic mood thanks to “The Embrace” were triggered. “Why does Jamie Lee Curtis have a picture of a naked child stuffed inside a suitcase on her wall,” said rightish broadcaster Stew Peters. “Strong Epstein vibes.” Right-wing activist Rogan O’Handley tweeted in part, “Hollywood has-been Jamie Lee Curtis posted …an extremely disturbing picture she has in her home of a child stuffed in a suitcase. We have serious questions.”

Curtis then took down the post and photo, explaining,

What’s going on here?

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Ew!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Yes, that’s actor Harry Hamlin. 70, posing with his oldest daughter, model Delilah Hamlin, who is 24…and, just to be clear his daughter. Hamlin posted the photo to Instagram, which indicates that he sees nothing oogy about it. Celebrity columnists, trying to put a positive spin on the photo of a woman in a sheer blouse posing seductively as her father buries his head into her face and pulls her close by the waist, are noting that it was shot snapped last month at New York Fashion Week (see, posing provocatively is a thing at such venues). I don’t care if the photo was taken at the International Incest Festival: what father in his right mind would proudly exhibit a photo like that, or be in a position to have one taken at all?

Maybe Hamlin is trying to claw his way back to genuine celebrity status. The former star of “LA Law” and the original “Clash of the Titans” is now reduced to being described as “’Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’” ‘star Lisa Rinna’s husband.” Ouch. Does the Hollywood maxim “any publicity is good publicity if they spell your name right” really stretch this far?

There is hope: a large percentage of social media users are creeped out by the photo. But returning to me question: What kind of father would do this? The photo brought back unpleasant memories of attending a party at the home of a former law professors and seeing prominently displayed a framed photo of his comely 20-something daughter (whom I had known since she was a little girl) seducing the camera while wearing what appeared to be a man’s white dress shirt and nothing else.

I have long believed that activist group statistics (as in “estimates”) regarding how many women are sexually molested by family member are wildly exaggerated. When I see photos like these, however, I wonder.

Ethics Quiz: Welcome To My World!

/ Jack Marshall / 68 Comments

Today I received two comments from an aspiring participant here called “snowflake.” They are really a single comment submitted in two installments. The topic was this post, about the weenie professor who grovelled an apology for daring to show Sir Lawrence Olivier’s screen performance of “Othello” in a class for discussion purposes.

Here is the comment:

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: The South Dakota Teacher “Dash for Cash”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

‘Hey, how about this? Let’s make our underpaid school teachers scrounge for dollar bills on their knees to amuse the crowd! What do you think?’

Someone really said that, or something similar, in a team promotion brain-storming session for The Sioux Falls Stampede, a junior league hockey team in South Dakota. And apparently everyone loved the idea, because they did it! As what was advertised as the first of many”Dash for Cash” attractions between periods in their home games, the team dumped $5,000 in $1 bills on a carpet at center ice and invited ten hockey helmet-wearing teachers from local schools to fight for the bills as fans cheered the degrading spectacle….

Teachers cash

The teachers’ hauls ranged from $378 to $616.

Videos of the educators stuffing cash into their shirts and pockets spread on social media over the weekend, and the reaction was…not good.

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“Why Aren’t People Ashamed To Ask A Question Like This?,” The Sequel

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

In this post from yesterday, I asked the question in the headline regarding a woman who wondered whether it was ethical to dump her dog-walker because a friend claimed that she had posted insufficiently woke opinions on social media. I have a question to top that one now. On “Social Q’s,” the New York Times weekly advice column on manners and social interaction dilemmas that I seldom read any more because of columnist Phillip Gallane’s addiction to gratuitous partisan talking points, a question from “Anonymous” caused me to do a spit-take at breakfast. Here it is:

“A few days ago, while I was driving home — way below the speed limit! — the neighbors’ dog darted into the street. (It looked like he was chasing something.) I slammed on my brakes and felt a thud. I got out of the car and saw that I had hit the dog. He was dead. I carried him to my neighbors’ house, but no one was home. So, I left him on the doorstep. I was going to write a note, but I chickened out. Now, the neighbors have posted signs around the neighborhood asking if anyone knows what happened. I feel terrible! Is it too late to speak up?“

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