neighborhood ethics

I’m Dreaming Of A Zombie Christmas

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Zombie Nativity

I didn’t say it was a pleasant dream.

Hmmm, how should I describe this? I would say that a law is being used to violate the First Amendment rights of an unethical jerk who is intent on abusing them.

Or, in the alternative, Jasen Dixon may just be an idiot.

Sycamore Township, which is just outside Cincinnati, has responded to complaints by neighbors by applying various ordinances against Dixon’s unusual Nativity scene that he constructed in his front yard. It features life-size figures portraying Joseph and Mary as the walking dead, and a zombie baby Jesus, who has pale skin and pure white eyes. Here, here’s a close-up of Zombie Baby Jesus:

Zombie-nativity-scene

Awwwww!

Dixon suspects that the township laws, which prohibit structures in the front or the side yard of a residence that occupy more than 35 percent of its total area, and require that the primary structure must be 3 feet from the street and 6 feet from the dwelling, are really being selectively enforced against him because his holiday display offends some people….well, almost everyone. I suspect this as well.

Poor Jason says he doesn’t mean any harm: he’s just doing the best he can to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. “I wanted a Nativity and I worked with what I had,”  says Dixon, who manages a nearby haunted house called “The 13 Rooms of Doom.” He says his First Amendment rights are being infringed.

“I’ve lived here for 15 years and I’ve never had a violation of any kind,” Dixon said. “It’s a holiday decoration. I know if it was a real pretty Nativity scene they wouldn’t be saying anything.”

I’ll agree with that too. Continue reading →

Bark-Off Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Bark-Off is a product you can see being pitched on cable TV almost any time of the day, a seemingly sinister gadget that allows you to stop your dog from barking, just like Adam Sandler does with his magic remote control in “Click.” The thing emits a high-pitched sound (“Not painful!” the commercial says) that only dogs can hear, and it distracts them enough to make them stop yapping.

As a dog owner, I find the Bark-Off vaguely creepy; I don’t like the idea off controlling the behavior of living creatures with electronic devices. Still, all the reviews of the product indicate that it isn’t painful and it does work for most dogs. Philosophically I object to it, because I think a dog owner should have more respect for his dog than to treat him like Christmas tree lights on a Clapper, but I can’t honestly say Bark-Off is unethical. Continue reading →

Ethics Test for the Anti-Palin Crowd

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

If you have a friend or colleague who can’t stand Sarah Palin—and who doesn’t?—the Joe McGinniss story gives you an infallible was to gauge their ability to be fair and objective, as well as their ability to apply the Golden Rule. Palin and her family are victims of a bad neighbor and an unscrupulous, venal and predatory author. The fact that one doesn’t like certain  victims of wrongdoing because of their political beliefs, their accents, or their talent for uttering simplistic sound-bites calculated to drive Democrats crazy shouldn’t obliterate one’s ability to determine right from wrong. Continue reading →

Neighborhood Ethics and the Snow Babe

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It’s time to play “Who’s the Worse Neighbor?”!

It’s clear that the media take on the New Jersey story about the risqué snow sculpture will favor the snow-artist neighbor and ridicule the Puritanical neighbors, but the ethics fouls may be on the other side.

A brief summary: a woman and her son used the ample snow on their lawn and the their substantial sculpting talents to make a life-size, headless, armless, torso and trunk of a rather well endowed naked woman instead of the more traditional Frosty the Snowman. If this  “came to life one day,”  that traffic cop would arrest it for indecent exposure. Continue reading →