Florida

Consenting To Be Beaten

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Bought and paid for.

Ethics Alarms has frequently used the analogy of a drunk paid by cruel bar patrons to dance for their entertainment as an example of how using money to persuade a desperate, impaired or foolish individual to allow himself to endure humiliation or harm is still unethical and cruel, despite the supposed “consent” of the victim. PETA’s attempt to pay Nadya Suleman, a.k.a. “Octomom” was recently cited in this context in the post about painting homes as billboards. Now, from St. Petersburg, Florida comes an even more horrible example. Shefights.net, a locally operated website that sells videos (for up to $900) of scantily clad or semi-nude women beating up men, has been paying homeless men, drug addicts and street alcoholics $50 for submitting to  12-minute videotaped beatings by attractive females. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Florida Legislator Kathleen Passidomo

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yup, the Temple girl was asking for it...

While pushing for a bill mandating a dress code for schools, Florida’s GOP legislator Kathleen Passidomo decided to bolster her argument by linking it the horrendous Texas case in which an eleven-year-old girl was raped by 18 men. She said:

“There was an article about an 11-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute. And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students.”

This woman is too dim-witted to make sandwiches. much less laws.

I don’t care if the 11-year old girl’s parents dressed her  like Christina Aguilara on a particularly slutty day. I don’t care if she looked like Jon Benet Ramsey on estrogen supplements. I don’t care if she looked 15, 17, 22, 31, or 64; I don’t care if she was buck naked and singing “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No.” None of that would create any reason, excuse, motivation or justification for even one man to rape her, much less 18.

Blaming rape on how women dress is an insult to men and a denigration of the rights of women. Blaming a rape on how a little girl dresses, however, is a clear sign of dangerous warped and flawed logic, values, compassion and comprehension.

Mike Haridopolos’s Book: Whatever Was Going On, It Had To be Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Four years and $152,000 for THIS??

What was going on here?

It has been revealed that new Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos was paid  $152,000 in taxpayer money to write a book on politics for Brevard Community College four years ago.
All 175 pages of the resulting tome, “Florida Legislative History and Processes,” were published exactly once. The only copy of the 175-page, double-spaced manuscript can only be found, and read, at the school. The book Haridopolos produced didn’t satisfy the original contract’s requirement for a publishable, textbook-quality look at the development of the Florida Legislature, state constitution, the governor’s office and judiciary from pre-statehood until present. But heck..what do you expect? He was only paid a lousy $152,000! What do you want, “Doctor Zhivago?” Continue reading →

Take “The Natalie Munroe Ethics Challenge”! Today’s Challenge: Who’s A More Unethical Educator—School or Mom?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Decide which of these stories from today’s newswires show more unethical conduct.

First, the Mom:

Tampa mother Ronda Holder was at her wit’s end trying to get her son, James Mond III, 15, to take school seriously. Neither she nor this father finished high school, and she told reporters she wasn’t going to let her son end up begging for spare change. She said they have offered James help, asked to see his homework, grounded him, lectured him and taken away his cell phone. Still he fails. “He’d tell us, ‘That school doesn’t give homework’ or ‘That teacher has a problem with me,’ ” Mond Jr. said. James did poorly in math, poorly in history, and when his latest report card showed an F in physical education, his mother felt it was the final straw.

So, naturally, she forced her son to stand near an East Tampa street corner for nearly four hours on a Wednesday afternoon, wearing a large sign around his neck with the message:

“I did 4 questions on my FCAT and said I wasn’t going to do it … GPA 1.22 … honk if I need  education.” Continue reading →

The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The BEST of Ethics 2010

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The Best in Ethics 2010. Not nearly long enough…but still a lot of men, women and deeds worth celebrating.

Most Important Ethical Act of the Year: Continue reading →

It’s Come to This: The Schoolboard Shooter Spin Competition

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The frightening incident in which a man held a Panama City, Florida school board at gun point (he was ultimately shot and killed by a security officer) is somehow being used…or is being perceived as being used…to discredit both the Right and the Left in ultra-polarized America. Yet it has absolutely nothing to do with either. Continue reading →

Schemes, Slander and Deception: The Most Unethical Maneuvers of Campaign 2010

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Well, I have to admit they were creative. And despicable.

2010’s most unethical maneuvers ran the gamut from lying to zombie exploitation, from false identity to extortion. Unfortunately, most of the worst stunts were pulled by or on behalf of Democrats; I say unfortunately because I try awfully hard to keep these kinds of lists in partisan balance. But the Democrats and their progressive fans were especially slimy this time around, and it it figures. When the going gets tough, the tough get unethical, and it is the Democrats who are facing ballot box carnage. They have been pushing the envelope, to say the least, in their campaign tactics, and I think it probably made their situation more dire rather than less.

Here, in reverse order of ethical outrageousness, are the Ten Most Unethical Maneuvers of Campaign 2010: Continue reading →

Attack Ad Ethics: Rep. Alan Grayson, Sinking to Expectations

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Rep. Alan Grayson (D) of Florida has his defenders, which means you can pretty much forget about fair play when you are dealing with any of them, too. The Florida Congressman is infamous for saying and repeating outrageous things about opponents and refusing to acknowledge that he was wrong or inappropriate. As I have written here often, some unethical conduct is so egregious that it precludes the possibility of it being an aberration or a mistake, and Grayson could be the poster boy for that principle. He has little regard for fairness, civility and truth, if defying any of these serves his purposes. Thus it is both unsurprising and comforting that the most unethical attack ad in this early campaign season come from him—comforting, because it proves the point. For Alan Grayson, unfair and dishonest attacks aren’t mistakes. They are a habit.

In a TV spot called “Draft Dodger, Grayson accuses his opponent of evading the Vietnam War draft, because “he doesn’t love this country.” Continue reading →

Florida Lawyer Quits For The Right Reason, But Will Get Credit For The Wrong One

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Florida lawyer Dan Gelber quit his law firm, Akerman Senterfitt, after BP hired the firm to represent it in the oil claims process. This will undoubtedly help him in his campaign for Florida Attorney General (Gelber is currently a state senator). His decision to resign is a very prudent and ethical one, but not for the reason most Floridians will think. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Florida House Rep. Janet Long

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Once again, an elected official is advocating the Bizarro World ethics principle that those with the greatest conflict of interest in a matter are the only ones who have standing to decide it.  Conflicts of interest create bias and interfere with objectivity. They are to be avoided whenever possible. How then does someone like Florida House of Representatives Member Janet Long, a Democrat from Pinellas County, while debating the controversial Florida law requiring women seeking an abortion to first have an ultrasound procedure, justify demanding that male legislators “stand down if you don’t have ovaries”? Continue reading →