fairness

Ethics Dunce (Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck and U.S. Public School Incompetence Divisions): Logan Middle School in Logan, W.Va.

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

Sigh.

Send him to the re-education center...

Send him to the re-education center…

I’ll stop flagging the unethical conduct of anti-gun hysterics during the Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck when they stop abusing kids and law-abiding citizens in their deranged determination to turn America into a gun-free zone through fear-mongering and intimidation. I’m genuinely sick of writing about this stuff, but not as sick as I am of the idiocy that produces it. Has any sane, prominent, respectable voice from the gun-regulation side registered strong objections to incidents like what happened in Logan? If so, I must have missed it. That’s illuminating, don’t you think?

Jared Marcum, an eighth-grader boy at Logan Middle School in Logan, W.Va., was suspended and arrested by police for wearing a pro-NRA T-shirt that depicted a firearm and the phrase “Protect your right” to class. He was charged with “obstruction and disturbing the education process.” It appears that his teacher asked him to remove his shirt, and he refused, prompting the arrest. Marcum was on solid ground, and his teacher was not.  The school dress code reads in part: Continue reading →

The Dilemma of the Oblivious Questioner

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
"Where was I? Oh, right...so what you were saying about client perjury reminds me of a trial in the Boer War...well, it wasn't a trial exactly; that was what Churchill's cousin called it---wait, not Churchill's cousin...the other guy, the one who was such a good canasta player. Nobody plays canasta any more..."

“Where was I? Oh, right…so what you were saying about client perjury reminds me of a trial in the Boer War…well, it wasn’t a trial exactly; that was what Churchill’s cousin called it—wait, not Churchill’s cousin…the other guy…no, it was a girl, I misspoke… the one who was such a good canasta player. Nobody plays canasta any more…”

I launched a new legal ethics seminar today. This is always nerve-wracking, because it has to last exactly three hours, has to cover the topics I’ve included in the printed materials, and the programs are interactive, meaning that the degree of attendee participation is unpredictable. After I’ve done a program a couple of times, I usually have a good idea about which segments prompt a lot discussion and which don’t, so I can time my own comments accordingly. The first time, however, it is pure guesswork.

This one, a country-music themed program, was going to be tight, but was close to schedule until an elderly lawyer burdened with various medical paraphernalia raised his hand. I called on him by reflex, and then realized that he was the same attendee who had blathered on earlier in the program, telling an irrelevant and pointless anecdote that ate up five minutes. Sure enough, the second he got his hands on the mic he was off again, this time making an obscure and convoluted comparison between what I had been discussing and Japanese war crime trials, but it was even worse. He went on tangents; he forgot names; he backtracked; he never made any coherent point. Some people got up and left. It was easily a ten minute filibuster, and permanently killed any chance I had of covering all my material. He finally reached the end, never making clear what the story had to do with anything. I went on to the next segment.

Now I wonder if I handled the situation properly and made the right ethical call, which was to tolerate his clueless intrusion and not embarrass him by cutting him off. Continue reading →

Gabrielle Giffords:The Helpless Pawn On The Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments
Pawn

Ex-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

 

James Taranto, the witty conservative commentator on the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” blog, properly takes aim at the New York Times op-ed supposedly authored by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and shoots it full of holes, quite accurately finding the piece guilty of almost every ethical violation that has characterized the shameless, and deservedly unsuccessful, effort to exploit the Sandy Hook massacre for gun reform. “Giffords’s 900-word jeremiad should be included in every textbook of logic and political rhetoric, so rife is it with examples of fallacious reasoning and demagogic appeals,’ he writes, noting that she is a “practitioner of incivility and unreason.”  Some of Taranto’s indictments:

  • “The argumentum ad passiones, or appeal to emotion. She leads with this one: “Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.” Continue reading →

Adding Insult To Injury: Critical Spam

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Spam2At least the old comment spam I have been inundated with for the last three years was usually complimentary, if vague and dumb. “Awesome revue! I will return to this weblog in the future, you can be assured of that!” Usually such a rave is attached to a post that is neither remarkable nor “a revue,” and the fact that 16 commenters, some with names like Britney Spears Nude, have exactly the same opinion usually raises suspicions, but hey, a compliment is a compliment. I feel bad sending such nice, appreciative readers to the spam bin with all the lista de email, but I do. (From today’s batch, this intriguing entry from “Graig”: “ierwa ciężkie spojrzenie. – Mówiłeś trochę? – spytał nerwowo. Nieewentualne, żeby nieco wiedział, pomyślał. Ale po co zaanonsował a figę owe? Czyżby? Arnold nie pył złych polityki. Po pro.” Who knows what hidden wisdom is in this missive? And who is “Arnold’?  It’s driving me mad!)

The latest trend, however, is to send nasty spam, on the theory , I suppose, that spam-blockers are set for fawning, and insults might slip through. I’ve received various forms of this comment in the last couple of weeks…

“The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as significantly as this 1. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I basically thought youd have something fascinating to say. All I hear is often a bunch of whining about some thing that you simply could fix in case you werent too busy searching for attention.”

Again, this comment was attached to a completely inappropriate post for that reaction, in this case, my expression of amusement at the story, later shown to be a hoax, about a naked 500 lb. man sitting on the son of Fred Phelps, of Westboro Baptist Church infamy. With all the genuinely whiny posts I have, you would think  “Gesescuro” could find one (excuse me, “1”) of them, but never mind that: isn’t spamming my site and and making me waste my time screening hundreds of them every day (so a genuine comment isn’t inadvertently lost) enough?   Now I have to put up with insulting spam too?

Life is unfair, and the internet is worse.

Now that’s whining, Gesescuro.

Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck Update: Integrity Check For Liberal Media Bias Deniers

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This is really pretty simple, or ought to be.

That's some watchdog you got there...

That’s some watchdog you got there…

On Tuesday, CNN released a press announcement unequivocally stating its support for the background check provisions of proposed gun control legislation. It declared that it would devote two days to the issue, and on Wednesday, Democratic Senator Joe Manshin (WV) thanked CNN news anchors for their support in the gun debate, saying to John Berman and Christine Roman, who had just presented, as promised, a completely one-sided view of the issue, “We appreciate your support.”

This, from the self-proclaimed “Most Trusted Name in News,” is the canary dying in the mine of honest, objective, ethical national journalism. It shouldn’t matter if you approve of background checks, though that is CNN’s disgraceful gambit: a large majority of the public does, and a large majority of the public approves of unethical journalism when it supports their preference. Not to be indelicate, but they are fools. A news organization that only presents one side of an issue or that slants its coverage to influence policy isn’t a news organization at all, but an ideological shill, and a tool of political manipulation. Continue reading →

The Florist, The Gay Wedding And The Slippery, Slippery Slope

/ Jack Marshall / 69 Comments
OK, she's a jerk. But is it ethical to say she can't be a jerk? Isn't America about having the right to be a jerk?

OK, she’s a jerk. But is it ethical to say she can’t be a jerk? Isn’t America about having the right to be a jerk?

Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts proprietor Barronelle Stutzman had been selling flowers to Robert Ingersoll and his partner, Curt Freed, his partner, for a decade, but drew a line in the sand when they wanted her business to supply the floral arrangements for their same-sex marriage. She refused, citing her relationship with God. This week, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a consumer protection lawsuit against  Stutzman, drawing a line of his own.

There are legal and ethical issues mixed up here like gazpacho, and some of them are not difficult. For example, whether Stutzman should have the legal right to do so or not, her decision to reject and stigmatize long-time customers is indefensible ethically. It is cruel, unfair, ungrateful and disrespectful. They were good enough to profit from for ten years, but not good enough to accommodate at the most important time of their lives? Such conduct earns a massive ethics “Yechh.”  Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Annette Funicello

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

AnnetteAnnette died yesterday after a long, painful decline triggered by the onset of Multiple Sclerosis 25 years ago. To understand why she was an Ethics Hero, one need only read the New York Times obituary, which captures her essence well. One is an Ethics Hero if one goes through life caring about others, being loyal, responsible and fair, never inflating one’s own value and worth above those you live and work with, and having integrity.

If you can do all this while being a celebrity, TV star, teen idol, recording star,  movie star and adolescent lust object, you are more than an Ethics Hero. You are a miracle. That was Annette. Continue reading →

Roland Martin and the Tragedy of Racism

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
I'll say this: Roland was less irritating than Soledad O'Brien...

I’ll say this: Roland was less irritating than Soledad O’Brien…

CNN has been engaged in either a purge or a make-over in recent weeks, depending on one’s point of view. One of the talking heads given the gate was Roland Martin, who describes himself on his blog as “a dynamic and engaging journalist.” Upon getting the bad news, Martin, who is African-American, took a hard look at his own career and abilities, applied an objective analysis, and concluded…that CNN was racist. He told the Huffington Post:

“You have largely white male executives who are not necessarily enamored with the idea of having strong, confident minorities who say, ‘I can do thisWe deliver, but we never get the big piece, the larger salary – to be able to get from here to there.”

Martin cited as proof the fact that when he guest-hosted a show for the network, the ratings didn’t drop: “If it’s a ratings game, and we won, how is it I never got a show?”

This is the permanent handicap a legacy of racism in the U.S. culture and the workplace bestows on American blacks. Not necessarily discrimination, but the impossibility of ever knowing whether discrimination and not legitimate factors have been the reason for a career setback, a failure, or the inability to advance. It is potentially crippling if the African-American, like Martin, uses the doubts created to relieve him of the duty of honest self-assessment, and to block him from the responsible course of rededicating himself to improving his skills and marketability. Continue reading →

Jordan Sheard And The No-Capital Punishment Slippery Slope

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments
Ah, come, on, show some compassion! All he did was set a guy on fire for being gay! Anyone can make a mistake!

Ah, come, on, show some compassion! All he did was set a guy on fire for being gay! Anyone can make a mistake!

One of these days, when CNN’s designated miracle-worker Piers Morgan (because making Larry King look brilliant is a miracle) is extolling the superiority of the land of his birth over the stupid, violent, individual rights-obsessed U.S., someone should ask him about Jordan Sheard. Sheard, a sadistic 20-year old bully, set his sights on a young gay man, Steven Simpson, whose offenses included, in addition to his sexual orientation,  a speech impediment, epilepsy and having Asperger’s  Syndrome. Sheard forced Simpson to strip down to his underwear and wrote gay slurs over his body, covered him with tanning oil, and set him on fire.

At his birthday party. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: SB Nation Contributor Bill Hanstock

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
Amazingly, this is the actual size of Bill Hanstock's head!

Amazingly, this is the actual size of Bill Hanstock’s head!

The article on SB Nation is called “White people celebrate Heat loss in exceedingly white fashion,” and consists of the writer, a guy named Bill Hanstock, whose article more effectively made me detest an author than any piece I’ve read in a long time, mocking individual spectators at the Chicago Bulls -Miami Heat NBA game (which ended that team’s epic winning streak) based on their faces, their choice of clothes, their beverages, their accessories, their ages, their hair (or lack of it), and most of all, their race.

The instant verdict here: not only is the article unfunny and unethical, not only should SB Nation’s editor be sacked for allowing such garbage to pollute the site and the web, but Hanstock is, to put it mildly, a virulent jerk. Continue reading →