Ethics Quote Of The Day: Joan Tarshis, Alleged Bill Cosby Victim

Joan_Tarshis_on_Bill_Cosb

“I know he’s an icon. So is Bill Clinton.”

-Latest Cosby accuser Joan Tarshis, now a publicist and journalist, who wrote a detailed account of  being sexual assaulted  by Bill Cosby, when she was a teen, for the Web site Hollywood Elsewhere, replying to a question on CNN this morning about why anyone should believe her when she impugns the character of “an icon.”

BAZINGA!

“Liz and Dick,” The Ethics Train Wreck Movie

The real producer behind "Liz and Dick"?

The real producer behind “Liz and Dick”?

There was another movie I watched on TV when I was too sick to move, think, or, in this case, change channels: “Liz and Dick,” the infamous Lifetime Movie Network bio-pic starring Lindsay Lohan. Was it lousy? Sure it was lousy; there was no way such a film could have been anything but lousy. Lousy cable movies, however, are hardly news or uncommon, especially on LMN. Indeed, this one was probably in the upper 25% for the outfit that regular creates starring vehicles for the likes of Erika Eleniak and Kellie Martin. This one, however, was an ethics train wreck quite apart from its aesthetic flaws.

The whole project begins with a lie, albeit a popular and elaborately supported one, which is that Elizabeth Taylor was anything special as an actress. She was not. Taylor parlayed uncommon beauty, public sympathy, and later sexual notoriety into mega-celebrity status that drooling male movie critics disgracefully interpreted as genuine talent. She had a thin, unpleasant and brittle voice that made her already limited range even more so. She couldn’t play comedy, and didn’t have the chops for hard drama either. Continue reading

Update: Derek Jeter Is Now A Full-Fledged Ethics Dunce

In an earlier post, I noted that Yankee legend Derek Jeter could do the right thing and accept the New York Yankee’s generous offer to pay him about twice what he’s worth, or become an Ethics Dunce (qualifications: greed, ingratitude, selfishness, unfairness, abuse of power ) by trying to extort the team for millions of dollars he neither needs nor deserves.

He has chosen the latter. Sorry, Yankee fans. Derek’s a Dunce after all.

I really thought he was better than this.

One Word Removed From Ethics Dunce-hood: Yankee Shortstop Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter is not an Ethics Dunce yet, and all those who admire the career of the great Yankee shortstop—even grudging Red Sox fans like myself–have to hope and wish that he does nor become on. He is perilously close, however—one word away, in fact. The word is “no,” and if he utters it in response to the reported contract being offered to him by the New York Yankees, it is time to replace his NY cap with a tall, pointy one. Continue reading