ficks

Leroy Fick, Meet the Honorary “Ms. Fick 2012.” On Second Thought, Don’t.

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Amanda Fick, er, Clayton

Following in the despicable footsteps of Leroy Fick, the  Michigan millionaire lottery winner who collects food stamps because of a loop-hole in the law (and whose name, “fick,” has made the Ethics Alarms glossary as the word for someone who is willfully, openly and shameless unethical), here comes a Ms. Fick, a.k.a Amanda Clayton. She says that she is entitled to food stamps despite having two homes and a million dollar lottery prize that will leave her with $500,000 in the bank. No need for me to be creative here; what went for the Original Fick goes for her as well:

“What ethical principle doesn’t his conduct violate? He’s not responsible; he’s not accountable; he’s not fair. He doesn’t respect his fellow citizens or their opinions. He’s not loyal to his state or his community. He’s not compassionate, and I wouldn’t trust him to walk my dog: he’d probably sell him.  Is he honest? Applying for food stamps is an act that declares that you need them to eat, because that’s the only reason they exist: Leroy Fick isn’t honest.”

Ditto the honorary Ms. Fick, 2012, Amanda Clayton. And if there are any eugenics practitioners out there, please try to keep these ficks from ever getting together. That’s all Michigan needs…a litter of little Ficks.

Thanks to tgt for the tip.

Dear Ethics Alarms: We Are Stealing Your Content. Love and Happy Hollidays, The Making Relationships Site

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I think this is strange.

Yes, it's true: Nelson may be running a relationship website.

Ethics Alarms got a trackback, which means that a website notified me that it had used a post here. I get these all the time, and sometimes it leads me to a new source of ideas, or new professional relationship. A site has quoted or re-posted some or all of an essay, and that is fine with me.

This trackback led me to a website called “The Making Relationships Site,” and there was my recent post about Zenas Zelotes, the Connecticut lawyer who argues that it’s good for a lawyer to have a romantic relationship with his client. What wasn’t there was a link to the blog, a reference to Ethics Alarms, or any credit to me as the author. My post was presented as the original content of  The Making Relationships Site. The re=post permitted no comments, so I couldn’t write a “What the hell are you doing?” comment, and the site includes no information about who operates it or how to contact webmaster.

But whoever it is was kind enough to let me know, via the trackback, that it had stolen my post. This is the fickish behavior of being candid about being unethical, which also carries an implication of shamelessness, and a dash of Nelson Muntz, the bully on The Simpsons whose reaction to everybody’s misfortune is to point and laugh.

I’m not especially worked up about the theft itself. I don’t like it, but I assume my work will be lifted without attribution from time to time; it goes with the job, though stealing articles about ethics has an especially oxymoronic tinge.

But for a site to make sure that I know about it is strange. Now I’m send it a trackback, so the operators know that  The Making Relationships Site is the first official online fick.

Alec Baldwin, Something of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

I should have known I was going to regret naming Donald Trump the Ethics Alarms “Jerk of the Year” in May. True, The Donald has only burnished his credentials since then, but other worthy candidates have charged into what would be contention for the crown, had I not rashly bestowed it on Trump, confident that nobody could be a bigger jerk than a man who sided with the birthers while using the crucial presidential nominating process as a crude promotion for his cheesy reality show.

But 2011 has been a banner year for jerks, uber-jerks, and beyond-jerks. There was Rev. Terry Jones, for example, who got people killed by threatening to burn a Koran. He blew right past jerk to asshole, so Trump was spared having to compete with him. There was Leroy Fick, the despicable lottery millionaire who kept getting food stamps after his bonanza, because of a loophole in the Michigan food stamp regulations. He inspired a whole new category for himself,  fick, which describes an especially shameless jerk.

Now, however, I am faced with a serious dilemma. What is an appropriately severe designation for actor (and alleged New York mayoral hopeful, which is disturbing on so many levels) Alec Baldwin, who in addition to revealing himself as a 9-11 conspiracy theorist earlier this year, just behaved like a spoiled child on an American Airlines flight, got himself kicked off to the inconvenience of his fellow passengers, and insulted the airline and the plane’s crew afterwards on Twitter?  Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Does The Golden Rule Ever Make You a Sucker?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

For Ken Anderson, an alternative tattoo instead of "Mother"

With great trepidation, I visit our friends to the North for the second time in a week…this time, for an Ethics Quiz.

Ken Anderson, 47, of British Columbia, has been fighting a lawsuit by his aged mother, Shirley Anderson, since 2000. Using a rarely used section of B.C.’s Family Relations Act, she is demanding that he pay her $750 per month in “parental support.” The law declares that adult children are responsible for legally supporting parents who are “dependent on a child because of age, illness, infirmity or economic circumstances.”

Anderson isn’t keen on the request, since both his parents abandoned him when he was a mere tyke of 15, leaving him behind as they moved away with two younger siblings. He lived with other families and then quit school to find work. Now he’s married with two kids, and makes his living driving a truck. Continue reading →

Fick* of the Month: Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

 

Rep. Walsh says that President Obama has no shame. He should know: having no shame is something of a specialty of Walsh's.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill) is a vocal Tea Party champion dedicated to fiscal responsibility, meeting obligations, protecting the future for our children, and living within our means. How does he reconcile these values with the fact that he owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children?

He can’t. It’s impossible. Walsh is the epitome of a political hypocrite, and because he is shameless about his despicable failure to meet his family obligations, he is also a fick. In fact, he is the Ethics Alarms Fick of the Month.

To be fair, Walsh disputes the amount that his wife claims he owes her in the suit she recently filed. You know what? It doesn’t matter how much he owes. Ethically, he is just as much of a fraud and a fick whether he owes $100,000, $25,000, or $500. For this is the self-righteous freshman Congressman who says,  in a video speech lecturing President Obama on fiscal responsibility, “I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” ”Have you no shame, sir?” he asks. Continue reading →

Fick Sighting in Prince George’s County

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Leslie Johnson, fick.

Ethics Alarms recently coined the useful term fick to describe the especially shameless individual who violates society’s ethical norms openly, publicly and flagrantly, without remorse or apology. It takes a certain kind of anti-social arrogance to be a true fick, with the gold standard established by Michigan lottery winner Leroy Fick, a millionaire who happily continues to collect food stamps because of a statutory loophole despite howls of indignation from his neighbors in one of the most fiscally-challenged states in the nation.  Other ficks who have come to light include Hugh Heffner despicable ex-fiance Crystal Harris, who plotted to humiliate him at the altar to launch a reality show. Of course, there is  longstanding Octo-fick Nadya Suleman, and celebrity fick Charlie Sheen.

Now lucky Prince George’s County in Maryland has a bona fide fick of its own.  Continue reading →

The Despicable Nadya Suleman and Ethics Estoppel

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Nadya Suleman, a.k.a. Octomom, strikes a dignified pose

From the beginning, the only thing keeping Nadya Suleman from being unequivocally despicable has been the lingering suspicion that she was mentally ill. It might be more than a suspicion, to be fair: having octuplets by artificial insemination when one already has six young children and no viable means of support could be called “proof.”  Now even that malady is an insufficient defense: the issue is settled, and she is despicable beyond redemption. One cannot call her the worst mother on the world, sadly, because every day brings the story of another infant thrown down a laundry chute or left in the care of a six-year-old while mom goes partying or looking for drugs. She may be, however, the worst mother ever to become famous for being a mother.

In the latest issue of InTouch magazine—the rag is one full step down from Us magazine, and one half-step up from The National Enquirer—Suleman confesses that she now reviles her octo-brood. “I hate the babies, they disgust me,’ she says. “My older six are animals, getting more and more out of control, because I have no time to properly discipline them.” Elsewhere in the article she bellyaches about how hard it is being a single, unemployed, narcissistic, absurd, irresponsible mother of fourteen children. “The only way I can cope is to lock myself in the bathroom and cry. Sometimes I sit there for hours and even eat my lunch sitting on the toilet floor. Anything to get peace and quiet,” she laments. Yes, Octomom says she regrets having all the children. Continue reading →