fairness

The Judge Who Would Be Nun: This Could Become A Bad Habit

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment
Nun hiest

Sister Mary Ignatius explains it all: “Stick em up!”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Navahcia Edwards, 25, was being tried before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly on charges of bank robbery. She performed the heist disguised as a nun. A scary nun.

Her attorney argued that the  robbery was carried out by a white thief, and Edwards is African-American. Her fiance, the defense claimed, hit the bank with a white accomplice who blackened her face under the old lady mask. This seems like a far-fetched defense to me, but criminal defenses when one’s client is probably guilty tend to be like that.

Judge Kennelly decided to test the theory. He said that he dressed up like the fake nun in the photo, mask and all, and looked in a mirror. His white skin was visible, so he rejected what he described as a “reverse Al Jolson” defense, and found Edwards guilty as charged.

This is unethical judicial conduct. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Chelsea Welch (The Applebee’s Train Wreck, Part Deux)

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments
Chelsea Welch 2

Chelsea Welch: Hire at your own risk. You have been warned. By Chelsea, in fact…

I really, really didn’t want to revisit the tale about the cheap pastor, the self-righteous waitress, and Applebee’s. The comments on the original post here were illuminating, not in a good way, and were profoundly discouraging. The fact that so many people are incapable of getting past their biases against any business that has to enforce basic common sense policies on their employees is depressing; the fact that they embrace wholeheartedly the idea that a minor instance of poor judgment and conduct warrants permanent vilification on the web is alarming; and the widespread rejection of the principles of the Golden Rule is scary.

Unfortunately, Chelsea Welch, the fired waitress whom I once had some sympathy for despite the fact that her firing was 100% justified, has apparently seen fit to publish a letter, although there is no way to tell that it is really hers—the way this whole scenario has gone, it probably was written by the pastor who started the whole mess to make Chelsea look bad. If that was the objective, the pastor was wrong again, for a ridiculous percentage of the commenters think the letter is perfectly reasonable, meaning, of course, that they have the ethical sensibilities of 5th graders. The cruel reader who brought this to my attention actually read the comments on one site and tallied them: 1538 supporting Chelsea, only 20 that didn’t.

<Sigh!>

Nonetheless, Chelsea Welch reveals herself as an A-1 prime ethics dunce, the kind of person who will blunder along through life behaving unethically, causing little and large harms and discomforts to those she encounters, always thinking she is in the right, because she doesn’t have the foggiest notion of how one goes about determining what  right is.

Her letter is a classic of rationalization. Some highlights (the entire letter is at the end)… Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Banishes “The Smoking Gun,” Unethical Website of the Month

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments
"This? Sure, this fits our mission. Post it!"

“This? Sure, this fits our mission. Post it!”

“The Smoking Gun” website has been linked on Ethics Alarms from the start, as its published documents from various sources can be an invaluable resource in uncovering unethical conduct in business, government, and popular culture.  Being linked here, however, carries an implied conviction that a site is itself ethical, or at least makes a good faith effort to be so. I can no longer say this with confidence about the “The Smoking Gun,” and thus am deleting its link while designating it the Unethical Website of the Month. Let’s not forget that it is owned by Time-Warner.

Why the ban? A hacker by the name of Guccifer hacked into Bush family AOL accounts, stole private messages and photos and posted them online  to embarrass the Bush family and violate their privacy. “The Smoking Gun” then re-posted all of it, including a private letter from George W. Bush to his family about planning the funeral of his father. Continue reading →

Stop Picking On Mike Tyson

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
This time, it wasn't your fault, Mike.

This time, it wasn’t your fault, Mike.

“Law & Order: SVU” cast former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson as a prisoner and past victim of child abuse victim, who murdered one of his abusers. The episode bombed for the NBC show during the crucial “sweeps” ratings period, and Washington Post TV writer Lisa De Moraes attributes the failure to the show’s insensitivity in casting Tyson.  She wrote in today’s Post,

“Before the episode aired, about 7,000 people signed a petition asking NBC to recast the role. The petition was created by an ardent “SVU” fan who is a rape survivor and who said she felt betrayed by the stunt casting. Among those who signed the petition: “NCIS” star and abuse survivor Pauley Perrette. Tyson was arrested in 1991 and charged with raping then-18-year-old Miss Black America pageant competitor Desiree Washington; he was convicted and served three years of a six-year prison sentence.”

If the “Law and Order” producers erred in casting Tyson, it was in under-estimating the fecklessness, bias and hypocrisy of the viewing public.  Continue reading →

Dog Racism Update: A Definitive Defense of Pit Bulls

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Nanny dog1

Ethics Alarms has discussed the unfairness, bigotry and ignorance behind the vilification of pit bulls and related breeds on many occasions: here, here, here , here, and here. Now Joshua Holland has written an excellent primer in Salon for the pit bull-phobics to chew on, and he did a superb job of debunking the illusion that this is a monstrous breed rather than what it really is, an uncommonly delightful one.

Among the highlights…

  • “Pit bulls are the dog of choice for irresponsible breeders, dog-fighters, people who want a tough-looking dog to tie up in their yard and those who refuse to have their male dogs… 86% of fatal canine attacks involve an unneutered male, according to the American Humane Society.”
  • “A 2009 study in the Journal of Forensic Science, found that the owners of vicious dogs, regardless of the breed, had “significantly more criminal behaviors than other dog owners”…According to the ASPCA, “Pit Bulls often attract the worst kind of dog owners.”
  • “We have tragically betrayed our children’s beloved nanny-dogs, raising them irresponsibly, training them to be aggressive and then turning them into pariahs when they behave as any dog would in similar circumstances.” Continue reading →

Yes, Putting Underpants on Michaelangelo’s “David” Is Unethical.

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

japan-David

So is putting a bikini on the Venus de Milo, in case you’re wondering.

The issue has been raised because a huge replica of the nude male statue was unexpectedly donated to a Japanese town, where it is unsettling some people and frightening others. Clothing “David” in a big Speedo or something has been suggested as a way to make the artwork more viewer-friendly.

Uh, no. Not all art will be welcome in every culture, and it may be that a mega-“David” in a Japanese park was a mistake. It is a work of visual art, however, and it is wrong for anyone other than the artist to alter or censor that artist’s creative work, especially when such a change renders the work of art risible. Putting underwear on “David” is as unfair and disrespectful as putting Groucho glasses on the “Mona Lisa.”

The town of Okuizumo has precisely two ethical choices, and no more: remove the statue and give it to someone else who will take care of it and appreciate it, or leave it alone.

Fruit of the Loom is not an option.

________________________________

Pointer: Lianne Best

Facts and Graphic: News.com.au

 

Ethics Quiz: Have We Achieved The Ultimate No-Tolerance Insanity At Last?

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

Starch AdStarch Ad

Wow, were kids sick back then, or what!

Wow, were kids sick back then, or what!

Could it be? Is it possible? Has school administrator incompetence, fearfulness, power abuse and cruelty finally reached its apotheosis?

In Loveland, Colorado, 7-year-old Mary Blair Elementary School student Alex Watkins was suspended by the Thompson School District for going through the motions of throwing an imaginary hand grenade at an equally imaginary box that contained “something evil,” with the admirable purpose of saving the world, doing so on what is anachronistically called a “school playground.” The imaginary grenade caused the imaginary box to be vaporized in an imaginary explosion.

The Horror.

The imaginary minds of one or more teachers who witnessed this carnage ignited in fear and anger. Of course, an overly-broad, incompetently drafted, utterly stupid no-tolerance rule was involved: Mary Blair Elementary School bans imaginary fighting and imaginary weaponry. The only bright side of this disgraceful abuse of an innocent child and blatant attempt at thought-control is that it might finally provide the absolute end point on the spectrum of school administration no-tolerance incompetence. Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz question for today is..

Is it? Continue reading →

Accountability For Tawana Brawley

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
Al Sharpton and Tawana, ruining lives. Nice hair, Al.

Al Sharpton and Tawana, ruining lives. Nice hair, Al.

Tawana Brawley was 15 when she was championed by the Rev. Al Sharpton after she falsely claimed that she had been kidnapped, raped, and smeared with fecal matter by a group of white men. Now Brawley, 40, going by the name of Tawana Gutierrez, and employed at a Richmond nursing home, has received a wage-garnishment order to collect the $431,492 judgment against her in a 1997 defamation case brought by one of those men, Steven Pagones, who at the time of her 1987 accusation was a state prosecutor in New York.

Good!

Sharpton, who also was hit with a large damages verdict in the case, has already paid up. His outrageous race-baiting at the time was worth it to him, since it set set the race huckster on the road to celebrity that culminated in his being anointed as a respectable MSNBC host and commentator. Respectable for MSNBC, that is. Brawley still has public support,  as the tender-hearted raise all sorts of arguments why she shouldn’t have to pay Pagones such a large amount. She is poor, they say. He should forgive her. She was only 15. She was disturbed. Now she is a single working mother, and we are really punishing her child. It was all Sharpton’s fault. And so on. Continue reading →

Beyoncé Ethics II: Has-Been Shaming at the Super Bowl?

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Destinys ChildBeyoncé didn’t lip-sync her Super Bowl appearance, but according to Slate writer Julia Turner, she was ungracious, unkind and disrespectful to her former Destiny’s Child partners, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, who joined her in the half-time show for what was billed as a reunion. She writes:

“Beyoncé’s lack of magnaminity reached its peak as their medley came to its climax. Instead of launching into a full rendition of “Say My Name” or some other Destiny’s Child classic, she said “Kelly and Michelle, can y’all help me sing this one?” Kelly responded, “Sho’ nuff, baby,” and the trio launched into “Single Ladies,” Beyoncé’s solo hit—about how great it is to be solo. This was, as Dave Weigel tweeted, “Like Beatles reuniting and singing ‘Mull of Kintyre,’ ” Paul McCartney’s Wings classic. Beyoncé, don’t shame Kelly and Michelle by dragging them back into the national spotlight and then making them sing the very song that shows what a culturally relevant force you still are, and what afterthoughts they have become! Be generous. Share the spotlight. You have so much.”

Fair? Continue reading →

When “No Tolerance” Meets Anti-Gun Hysteria: How Silly Can School Administrators Get?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I have this sinking feeling that we have not yet seen the worst.

Phil? Is that you?

Phil? Is that you?

In Woody Allen’s oddball satiric masterpiece “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?”, the hero, a dim-bulb Japanese version of James Bond named “Phil Moskowitz,” is being briefed on his quary, a Chinese super-villain named Wing Fat. Pointing to a map, the secret agent’s boss tel’s him, “This is the home of Wing Fat!” “You mean he lives in that little piece of paper?”the agent exclaims.

I always wondered what happened to Phil, considering his, ah, handicap. I should have guessed. He became a school administrator in Tan Valley, Arizona,.

Daniel McClaine, Jr., a freshman at Poston Butte High School there, made a web photo of an AK 47 against an American flag backdrop  as the desktop background on his school-issued computer and was suspended as a result.

NO, Phil, the piece of paper isn’t the real gun! Won’t you ever learn? Continue reading →