jerks

Eliot Spitzer, Playing to Form

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The buzz out of CNN is that its struggling “Spitzer-Parker” talking heads show is on the ropes, and will soon be re-tooled, de-Parkered, or dropped altogether. Nobody who has tried to watch this virtually unwatchable program will be surprised to hear it, nor will anyone be surprised to see the show re-emerge as just “Spitzer” or perhaps “Spitz!” If that is the solution, it will be one more instance in which unethical conduct prevails over its good twin. This is show biz, after all.

It won’t prevail for long. Eliot Spitzer has revealed himself on the show as a selfish, unmannered bully, as well as an old-fashioned male chauvinist pig. Continue reading →

Ethics Alarm: Are You A Potential Jerk?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Eric Schwitzgebel, Professor of Philosophy at University of California at Riverside, posted an essay on his terrific blog, “The Splintered Mind,”in which he speculates on the phenomenology of being a jerk, giving all of us some tools to determine whether we are jerks, or in imminent danger of jerkhood.

His method centers on two key features of a jerk mindset, both of which lead to the rationalization of unethical behavior: Continue reading →

Julian Assange: Not a Hero, Not a Terrorist, Not a Criminal, Just an Asshole

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I know. Well, sometimes a vulgar word is the most accurate we have.

Our definition of journalism has yet to catch up with the cyber age, and freedom of speech does not distinguish among blogs, newspapers and dissidents. What ensures responsible use of First Amendment rights is ethics, not law. America allows journalists to act as information laundries, taking material that a private citizen was bound not to reveal by law, contract, or professional duty, and to re-define it to the world as what “the public has a right to know,” defined any way the particular journalist finds appealing.

Despite all the fulminating and condemnations by the likes of Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich on the Sunday talk shows, the U.S. can’t make Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a terrorist just by calling him one, nor can it fairly declare him a criminal for accepting the product of the unethical and often illegal acts of leakers, and making it public, just like the New York Times has done on many occasions…not under current laws.  Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who leaked many of the secret documents, is certainly a criminal. So was Daniel Ellsberg, who, to nobody’s surprise, is cheering Assange on and attacking his critics. . Assange, however, is not a criminal. He has not revealed any information that he accepted in trust while  promising not to reveal it. He is no more a criminal than the New York Times, if the New York Times was published in Hell. Continue reading →

Unethical Website: Hillbuzz

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Hillbuzz is the right wing website leading the charge to get Bristol Palin, who can’t dance a lick, voted as the best celebrity dancer on TV’s  “Dancing With The Stars” because, illogically enough, the site’s operators like her mother. Makes sense to me! Actually, it only makes sense in that I am familiar with how self-absorbed political fanatics on the Right and Left think, which is often inherently unethical. In this case, Hillbuzz thinks it’s reasonable to louse up the fun of a dancing competition and turn it into an expression of Tea Party power. Continue reading →

Celebrity Ethics: Rihanna’s “Fuck You” Necklace

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Pop star Rihanna is getting media flack for being photographed with a group of young children while wearing a necklace with a design that spells out “Fuck You.” “We know she probably wasn’t anticipating being bombarded by a bunch kids and shit, but damn, she could’ve tucked that joint in before agreeing to take photos with the little crumbsnatchers,” opines the classy gossip site Bossip, for example. Continue reading →

Gawker’s Unethical Defense Of An Unethical Post

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Being slammed left, right and center, the unprincipled gossip site Gawker, which published a slimy kiss-and-tell account by an anonymous creep who shared a night of passion, if not as passionate as he expected, with Christine O’Donnell, issued its official defense. It can be summarized as “she’s a judgmental, hypocritical prude and she deserved it,” which is really a stand-in for the real motive, which does something like, “we’d publish the private secrets of our own grandmothers if it would get us more traffic.”

The hypocrisy argument is nonsense. Continue reading →

The Officious Intermeddlers, the Victory Cigars, and Exception Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The Cincinnati Reds just clinched their first post-season playoff appearance since my son was born, and he’s 15. Understandably, the triumph set off the traditional and familiar sports team celebratory nonsense, with grown men shouting and jumping on each other and spraying everyone with champagne. Some of the Reds, led by Reds owner Bob Castellini, lit “victory cigars,” a guy-thing ritual that dates back beyond memory, though it was made especially famous by Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, who would light a cigar from his perch on the Celtics bench as soon as he was certain a game had been won. (Yes, upon reflection, it was obnoxious. They loved it in Boston, though.)

No sooner had some of the Reds taken their victory drag on the stogies than several Cincinnati citizens hit the phones, complaining the Reds had broken the law. Continue reading →

Fake or Real, “I’m Still Here” is Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Now, having had his film reviewed by most major critics as a genuine documentary and being widely assailed as an exploitive creep (including here), Casey Affleck is telling the media that the film is a put-on. If it is (and why anyone should believe a liar when he admits he is lying is an unanswerable question), then he exploited the audience and defrauded them into seeing a film under false pretenses. The movie isn’t funny, like “Borat,” and there is no legitimate entertainment purpose in staging a fake portrayal of a drugged out,  self-absorbed jerk, who is really only a lying, self-absorbed jerk. Just as James Frey’s  A Thousand Little Pieces was a lousy novel that attracted interest because he falsely represented it as non-fiction, “I’m Still Here” only could attract an audience if they were lied to—because nobody would care about Juaquin Phoenix’s idea of satire. Andy Kauffman he’s not. They will, however, pay to watch a human train wreck. Is Affleck trying to make the audience feel foolish? They are only foolish for trusting him. They won’t do it again.

I still think it’s 50-50 whether the hoax admission is another hoax, as a desperate effort to gin up box office. But it really doesn’t matter. Whether the film is truth or fabrication, Phoenix and his pal Affleck are despicable…just for different reasons.

Police Brutality: Direct TV Strikes Again!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

In a previous post that apparently established the proprietor of Ethics Alarms as a “fuddy-duddy,” I discussed the disturbing series of stereotype-bashing Direct TV commercials that sets out to show how amusing irrational hatred and gratuitously cruel behavior can be. The commercials seem to be escalating, and why not? Ethics Alarms isn’t their only, or most prominent, critic, and ethics be damned—the ads are being watched and talked about! Victory! And besides, they’re aimed at football fans, a demographic that is rather less likely to find the encouragement of random violence upsetting in any way.

The latest “hurt your rival” drama from Direct TV shows two police casually tasering a man who “cheats” in the Fantasy Football league by using his Direct TV NFL  feed to get an upper hand on the competition. (He is seen twitching on the floor. LOL!). As a commenter on the previous post has pointed out, police nationwide are fighting a perception and public relations battle over alleged incidents of excessive force, many involving tasers. This commercial encourages distrust of the police, and reinforces a false and unfair perception that misuse of their power and authority is the norm. Is it worth the laughs, if indeed there are any?

I think the standards for comedians and commercials should be different, with comics having the broadest possible discretion to do or say whatever they feel is necessary to promote mirth from their audiences. TV commercials are more than entertainment: the audiences don’t choose the content of ads or know when they will see them, and their visibility and repetition gives the commercials enough influence over cultural attitudes to warrant a higher level of responsibility on the part of the company and the ad agency.

Mainstream media ads both reflect public attitudes and mold them. The Direct TV ads either show we have a callous society, or are helping to make us one.

Manny, Kanye, and the Farce of Self-Serving Apologies

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Two habitual bad actors in the world of entertainment apologized this week, for similar reasons and with equivalent credibility.

First, baseball slugger Manny Ramirez issued an apology to his former team once removed, The Boston Red Sox, for forcing the team to trade him in the middle of the 2008 pennant race because Manny was faking injuries, refusing to hustle during game, assaulting employees, and poisoning team morale and discipline. “I think everything was my fault,” Ramirez said. “You’ve got to be a real man to realize when you do wrong. Hey, it was my fault, right? I’m already past that stage. I’m happy. I’m in a new team,” Manny told reporters. He was with a new team, all right: the Dodgers, his previous team, let him go to the Chicago White Sox for nothing because, well, he was faking injuries, dogging it in the field…same act, different stage. So what was the apology about?

Manny, or more likely his agent, realizes this most recent break with a team as the result of his habitually juvenile and unprofessional attitude might cost him a lot of money at contract time—Ramirez is a free agent after all. So contrition was called for—two full years after he laughed off any suggestions that he was at fault for the Boston debacle, and proved that he had been loafing on the field by playing in L.A. like he was on fire. This isn’t an apology; it’s damage control, and thus is a deceitful and dishonest apology that has nothing whatsoever to do with genuine regret. The big tip-off is that Ramirez felt he had to explain why his apology was so admirable. Yes, Manny, you have to be a real man to admit you’re wrong; a real jerk to fake an apology to fool a future employer into believing that you’ve turned over a new leaf, and real fool to believe anyone will fall for it.

Then there is rapper Kanye West. Continue reading →