responsibility

Ethics Night on “American Idol,” As An Ethics Hero Is Born

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Ethics Hero, Scotty McCreery

“American Idol’s” group portion of its winnowing process always is the most fascinating chapter of its yearly saga, as the singing competition briefly shifts into full reality show mode. I’ve never been convinced that it was a fair method to judge aspiring singers who were competing as solo acts, as it frequently results in superior vocalists being dumped because they couldn’t sing harmony, learn choreography and lyrics under pressure, or play well with others. I know you have to get that mass of ambition and ego reduced to 24 people somehow, but group day is the equivalent of throwing darts at a dartboard.

It makes for great ethics scenarios, though. The format guarantees it, as the contestants have to form groups of four or five in a cruel process reminiscent of choosing sides for pick-up baseball games, guaranteeing that some people will end up feeling like the fat kid who always gets chosen last, if at all.

Last night there were several featured ethics dramas, with the judges, as they have been all season, being less than consistent in their responses to them. Continue reading →

Are GOP Leaders Obligated to Condemn Doubters of Obama’s Birth and Beliefs?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

No.

But NBC’s David Gregory thinks so. Here was his exchange with Republican Speaker John Boehner on “Meet the Press” yesterday: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Dr. Phil’s Child-Abusing Mom”

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

I don’t want to pick on Cara, who made this comment in reply to my response to her earlier comment that objected to the original post referring to forcing a seven-year-old child  to drink hot sauce and making him stand in a cold shower as punishment as “abuse.” That comment had such gems as “screaming is not necessarily an indication of abuse, some children just can not express themselves” and “depending on how you look at it, all disciplinary methods could be called abusive.” Her follow-up message, even more than her first, shows how people can come to excuse, rationalize and eventually accept truly terrible and cruel conduct, by others and eventually themselves. Rationalization cripples the ethics alarms, and eventually, as in Cara’s reasoning, we are excusing evil, and condemning those who stand against it, arguing, as she does here, that they have no standing to judge others, since everybody makes mistakes.

The comment makes a better case than anything I have written thus far for the importance of us all to engage in constant efforts to perfect our ethical sensitivity, to improve our ethics alarms, and to be vigilant against facile rationalizations.

Here’s a challenge: How many rationalizations can you count being used here? I find at least six, and perhaps as many as eight.

Here is the comment, by Cara, on “Dr. Phil’s Child-Abusing Mom”: Continue reading →

The Dilemma of the Legless High School Pitcher

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Seemingly an inspirational movie in the making, Anthony Burruto is a student at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, Florida. He has been playing baseball since he was 8 years old, despite the inconvenience of having both of his legs amputated when he was an infant. He plays the game on prosthetic legs that are all he has ever known, and does it well as a pitcher who can throw a mean curve and a fastball that has been clocked at 80 mph. This is Anthony’s sophomore year, and his goal was to play on Dr. Phillips High varsity baseball team this spring.

After two days of try-outs, Coach Mike Bradley cut him. Anthony’s metal legs, adept as he was at using them, made him too slow off the pitching mound when he had to field a bunt, said the coach, and teams would take advantage of his inability to jump off the mound quickly.

Sorry, kid.  Continue reading →

The Ashley Payne Affair Revisited

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

What's wrong with this picture?

One of the earliest Ethics Alarms posts concerned Barrow County, Georgia, teacher Ashley Payne, who was forced out of her job at Apalachee High School for posting photos on Facebook that showed Payne drinking beer and wine while on a vacation to Europe. Barrow had a policy stating that employees can be investigated, disciplined and terminated for postings on Web sites that contain provocative photographs, sexually explicit messages, use of alcohol, drugs or anything students are not supposed to do. In the initial post, I took the position that the school over-reacted, but that Payne was still accountable because she knew what the policy was and violated it:  Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Lexington (Mass.) High School Principal Natalie Cohen

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“Columbinus” is a tough play by Stephen Karam and PJ Paparelli that combines interviews and news footage about the Columbine shootings with dramatic and cinematic techniques to explore the human and cultural issues raised by the tragedy. It is not “Grease,” by any means, and though many high schools have produced it successfully, I would not quarrel with the decision by any school official who decided that the show was inappropriate for high school drama and that it would better to do, say, “The Mikado.”

But Lexington High School principal Natalie Cohen managed to make this decision in the worst way imaginable, for the worst reasons imaginable, showing rank ignorance of the purpose of theater while being irresponsibly dismissive of the efforts and creative energies of her students. Continue reading →

Alcoholics Anonymous and Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 70 Comments

With all the alcoholics in my life, and there are and have been many (some of whom I undoubtedly never knew qualified), today was the first time I ever actually attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Indeed, before yesterday I didn’t know I could attend. Many groups have periodic “open” meetings, however, to which friends and family members of alcoholics as well as “anyone interested in learning about alcoholism” are invited. I know a lot about alcoholism, learned the hard way. Now I know more. More important than that, I realize that Alcoholics Anonymous has a great deal to teach everyone…not just about alcoholism, but about ethics. Continue reading →

The Status of Dismissed Gay Troops: An Ethics Test For The GOP

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Stars and Stripes reports that a group of House Democrats has proposed that troops  dismissed under the now repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” law should be able to apply for honorable discharge status if it had been initially denied to them, thus permitting them to receive veterans benefits. Continue reading →

Dr. Phil’s Child-Abusing Mom

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I stopped watching Dr. Phil when I discovered that he was a fraud. There have been some substantial benefits of this pledge on my part; for example, I didn’t see the recent episode about problem children, which showed videotape of a mother from Anchorage, Alaska torturing her child.

Incredibly, Jessica Beagly, mother of six, oversaw the videotaping of her squirting hot sauce into the mouth of her adopted Russian son and forcing him into a cold shower. She made the tape so Dr. Phil could give her some advice on a segment that aired in November  called “Mommy Confessions.” The studio audience was brought to tears by the tape, and Dr. Phil, no fool he, described the punishment as “over the top.”

Consequences (so far): Continue reading →

Planned Parenthood Gets The ACORN Treatment

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Taking its inspiration from James O’Keefe’s infamous ACORN stunt, and anti-abortion group called Live Action videotaped actors as they asked Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey clinic for advice while disguised as a pimp and one of his prostitutes. Sure enough, just like in the incident that helped destroy ACORN, the eager-to-please Planned Parenthood staff member cooperated, advising the couple how to get abortions and other services for the “pimp’s” prostitutes, some of them described as illegal immigrants and girls as young as 14.

The episode raises several ethical issues: Continue reading →