rape

Unethical Quote Of The Year: Ariel Castro

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
Well, now, Ariel, with all due respect, I have to disagree with you here. You are, in fact, a monster.

Well, now, Ariel, with all due respect, I have to disagree with you here. You are, in fact, a monster.

Perhaps some gratitude is due to convicted Cleveland kidnapper, torturer, rapist Ariel Castro for yesterday’s long, rambling, thoroughly disturbing statement to the court before sentencing. Within the nearly 1900 words he inflicted on everyone present are a true treasure trove of rationalizations, ethical dodges and classic excuses for wrong-doing, many of which, in different contexts, we use ourselves or accept from others. Perhaps, in the future, when we hear or read of these very same rationalizations and deceit from politicians, celebrities, Wall Street manipulators, media flacks and the people who enable them, or when we detect the seeds of one of them germinating in our own heads, we will recognize them as the property of Ariel Castro, and reject them promptly.

Here is what Castro said yesterday, in its entirety. Read the whole thing…just picking out the highlights doesn’t do the statement justice. It is a masterpiece of evil. I’ll break in from time to time, in bold:

Continue reading →

And The Jumbo, Desperately Incredible Excuse Division, Goes To….Rodger William Kelly!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
Clockwise from Left: "These aren't my pants!"..."A ghost did it!"..."I was just trying to revive her!"..."Elephant? What elephant?"

Clockwise from Left: “These aren’t my pants!”…”A ghost did it!”…”I was just trying to revive her!”…”Elephant? What elephant?”

There is no question that Rodger William Kelly deserves his Jumbo Award, the Ethics Alarms honor periodically bestowed on “an ethical miscreant who continues to try to brass his or her way out of an obvious act of ethical misconduct when caught red-handed and there is no hope of ducking the consequences.” But there is a legitimate issue over whether his explanation to the  St. George, Utah police regarding why he had sexual intercourse with his unconscious, 29-year-old female neighbor becomes the new champion as the most ridiculous excuse ever.

To refresh you memory, the current champ is Michael West, the Wisconsin wife-beater who swore to police that his bruised and bloody wife had been attacked by a ghost. He dethroned long-time champ Lindsay Lohan, who began her long, sad descent by explaining to police, when she was still a movie star and caught with cocaine on her person after a vehicle arrest, that she was wearing someone else’s pants. 

I think West’s short reign is over, however. Kelly told officers that he found the woman passed out in front of her apartment and, concerned for her welfare, he brought her inside his own apartment. There he changed her clothes and put her on his bed, and tried to “warm her” by laying down next to her, hugging her, and then, as a desperate measure since nothing seemed to be working, inserting his heat-emitting penis into her to try to “raise her temperature.”  Later he tried more conventional CPR. He’s not a rapist. He’s a hero! Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Chelsea Bacon

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

“Comedy is not assuming zero responsibility over your actions. It is not telling others how to respond. It is not demonstrating the utmost hypocritical behavior in making callous, lazy, ignorant statements and then lashing out aggressively against critics. Comedy is not free from criticism. This is not an echo chamber containing only yourself and a couple other people exactly like you. You won’t need to do any of these things if you want to be a good comedian, or a decent human being for that matter.”

—-Chelsea Bacon, concluding her account of the reaction she received from male comedians and commenters when she criticized what she regarded as gratuitous sexist jokes.

You might want to read Chelsea's piece, Seth...

You might want to read Chelsea’s piece, Seth…

Bacon takes a brave and ethical stand on unpopular topics among comics, such as whether all jokes are defensible regardless of content as long as they make someone laugh, whether rape is ever legitimate joke fodder, whether exploiting minority stereotypes is fair game in pursuit of comedy, and whether it is inappropriate to criticize comedy material at all. Along the way, the dirty little not-so-secret of the gender imbalance in the comedy world also comes to light.

It is a bold and thought-provoking piece, which you can read in its entirely here.

___________________________________

Pointer: Fark

Source: Little Village Mag

OK, I’m Convinced: There Is No Bottom To This Barrel

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments
Look out, guys! Those mutant horsemen behind you are REALLY scary!

Look out, guys! Those mutant horsemen behind you are REALLY scary!

I am giving up my clearly futile and misguided search for the most unethical conduct imaginable, even in the relatively narrow category of horrible mothers. My last foray into this quixotic realm was met with convincing rebuttals from many of you, particularly referencing the horrendous conduct of couples engaged in divorce and child custody battles. I am convinced. The human species knows no limits to its corruption, viciousness, selfishness and cruelty.

This story clinched it for me, a case of virtual mother-daughter rape. Continue reading →

The Steubenville Ethics Train Wreck: So Far, So Bad

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

steubenville

There has been no mention here of the awful Steubenville, Ohio rape case before today, and there was a reason for that. This is a massive ethics train wreck that is not only still rolling and accumulating passengers and victims, but is also too full of debris and wreckage to fully understand. At the end of this month, a grand jury will begin examining the looming question of whether others besides the two high school football players already convicted of the rape should be indicted.  The town is also doing an investigation of its own. These will help. My hesitation in diving into this gothic American nightmare is that recounting the obvious instances of miserable, heartless, ethically incomprehensible conduct by participants, observers, public officials and commentators doesn’t begin to make sense of it.  We will be analyzing and discussing this episode for a long time—we will have an obligation to do so. It is every bit as important and alarming as the Penn State scandal, and more significant than the infamous New Bedford pool table rape case, which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film, “The Accused.”

The crucial cultural questions that will have to be answered are these: Continue reading →

Wanetta Gibson Is Even Worse Than We Thought

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments
How do you treat a monster like Wanetta?

How do you treat a monster like Wanetta?

Of Wanetta Gibson, the woman who sent innocent high school football star Brian Banks to prison for five years for a rape he didn’t commit, collected $750,000 by continuing her lie in a lawsuit against the high school where she and Banks were both students, and then sought forgiveness from him in prison while refusing to exonerate him to prosecutors because she didn’t want to give back the money, I wrote:

“There are not sufficient laws, nor words in the dictionary, nor public shaming, shunning and condemnation to do justice to the likes of Wanetta Gibson. She ruined a young man’s life and stole $1.5 million in the process. She can recant, apologize, say that she found God, weep, express regret and anything else, and it should not insulate her from societal rejection. No one should hire her. No bank should give her a loan or a credit card. No taxpayer should have to contribute to her health insurance or food stamps. No one should befriend her. Absolutely no one should forgive her, consort with her or trust her. The kind of organized hatred that was manufactured against George Zimmerman is appropriate in her case. The Golden Rule? If I behaved like Wanetta Gibson, I would deserve everything I have described, and more.”

And you know what? I think I was too easy on her. Continue reading →

University Justice Isn’t Ethical, Isn’t Reposponsible, And Isn’t Justice, Either.

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
Oh-oh...

Oh-oh…

The University of North Carolina is charging a student with an honor code violation because she did not acquiesce in a student Honor Court’s decision to dismiss a complaint of rape she filed against another student. The charge against her reads…

You are being charged with the following Honor Code violation(s): I.C.1.c. – Disruptive or intimidating behavior that willfully abuses, disparages, or otherwise interferes with another (other than on the basis of protected classifications identified and addressed in the University’s Policy on Prohibited Harassment and Discrimination) so as to adversely affect their academic pursuits, opportunities for University employment, participation in University-sponsored extracurricular activities, or opportunities to benefit from other aspects of University Life.

The student, Landen Gambrill, faces possible expulsion for her offense. Meanwhile, the man who she says raped her is still on campus.

Wait…what? This sound insane. How can this happen? Continue reading →

Seth MacFarlane’s Outrageous Oscar Mistake (At Least, I Hope It Was A Mistake)

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
"The Family Guy" in a typical moment of sensitivity.

“The Family Guy” in a typical moment of sensitivity.

The viewing public was severely divided regarding “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane’s performance as Oscar host, with approximately half appreciating his trademark juvenile and politically incorrect schtick (and being impressed that the guy can sing and dance rather well too), and the rest, including the majority of TV critics, finding him boorish, amateurish and unfunny. Personally, I thought he did a reasonably competent job in an impossible assignment (unless, it seems, you are Johnny Carson or Bob Hope, who are long gone, or Billy Crystal, who is seriously past his pull date), made more so by the misconceived show he had to host.

Then I read Katie McDonough’s essay in Salon. Continue reading →

Stop Picking On Mike Tyson

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
This time, it wasn't your fault, Mike.

This time, it wasn’t your fault, Mike.

“Law & Order: SVU” cast former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson as a prisoner and past victim of child abuse victim, who murdered one of his abusers. The episode bombed for the NBC show during the crucial “sweeps” ratings period, and Washington Post TV writer Lisa De Moraes attributes the failure to the show’s insensitivity in casting Tyson.  She wrote in today’s Post,

“Before the episode aired, about 7,000 people signed a petition asking NBC to recast the role. The petition was created by an ardent “SVU” fan who is a rape survivor and who said she felt betrayed by the stunt casting. Among those who signed the petition: “NCIS” star and abuse survivor Pauley Perrette. Tyson was arrested in 1991 and charged with raping then-18-year-old Miss Black America pageant competitor Desiree Washington; he was convicted and served three years of a six-year prison sentence.”

If the “Law and Order” producers erred in casting Tyson, it was in under-estimating the fecklessness, bias and hypocrisy of the viewing public.  Continue reading →

New Mexico Abortion Wars: Yes, It’s A Terrible Law, But Not A Terribly Unethical One

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments
Paving the road to hell? New Mexico lawmaker Cathrynn Brown

Paving the road to hell? New Mexico lawmaker Cathrynn Brown

My friend (and Ethics Alarms Ethics Blogger of the Year) Rick Jones went full-Django on New Mexico State Legislator  Cathrynn Brown for her proposed, now withdrawn, measure forbidding women who are pregnant as the result of incest or rape from getting an abortion on the theory that it constitutes “destruction of evidence.” The attempt launched Rick into rare form:

“Every once in a while someone mixes up a cocktail of such mind-melting stupidity, monumental inconsistency, and transcendent arrogance that there is little for the rest of us to do but drop everything and gaze in slack-jawed wonderment at the inanity before us. Behold, therefore, one Cathrynn Brown (right), a New Mexico legislator whose latest bill rockets off the scale, leaving “moronic” and “horrific” as feeble understatements of the idiocy involved.”

Whoa, Nelly!

Let’s calm ourselves and consider, shall we? Continue reading →