Some concluding Ethics Alarms from the Brown-Coakley Senate race, many with the same dispiriting lesson: hyper-partisan zealotry is causing many Americans to abandon their senses of fairness, proportion, and common sense : Continue reading
responsibility
Most Unethical Joke of the Year
Rebecca Solomon, a 22-year-old student at the University of Michigan, was flying back to school after her holiday break. Shee arrived at Philadelphia International Airport 90 minutes before takeoff, to make sure security screening wouldn’t make her miss her Northwest Airlines flight into Detroit. She knew about the attempted Christmas bombing attack on the same airline on the way to the same city, and was understandably nervous.
After sending her carry-on items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she saw a TSA worker beckoning her solemnly. As she walked over to him, he pulled a clear plastic bag from her bag. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.
“Where did you get it?,” he said, frowning. Continue reading
On Frozen Tongues and the No-Accountability Culture
A Siro, Oklahoma school bus driver, who is also a teacher, leaves a fifth-grade student stuck by the side of the road with her tongue frozen fast to a metal pole. The bus driver tells the girl that she doesn’t have time to help her, and drives away, forcing the girl to free herself by slowly chewing her way off the pole. The school discusses the situation with the driver and others who are charged with transporting the children, and declares the problem solved. The bus driver, the school says, will continue in both her duties.
Enough.
It is time for everyone to resist the increasing cultural pressure to create an accountability-free society. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: the North Carolina State Personnel Commission
In a video that I prefer not to link to, North Carolina Highway Patrolman Charles Jones is shown hanging his K-9 partner, Ricoh, off the ground and brutally kicking him because the dog would not release his hold on a chew toy. That video (and another similar one) got him fired, but the State Personnel Commission just reversed the decision, saying that Jones’s conduct did not sink to a level justifying dismissal for cause, only discipline for “unsatisfactory job performance.” Continue reading
Team Obama:Reinforcing National Apathy and Warped Priorities
President Obama is re-scheduling his State of the Union message to avoid preempting of the premiere of “Lost,” the cult sci-fi series that will be starting its final season.
Let me say that again so it sinks in: President Obama is re-scheduling his State of the Union message to avoid preempting of the premiere of “Lost.”
Internet on the Dashboard: When Ethics is Impossible
What rationalizations does a computer company use to justify the development of a new dashboard device that is certain to cause accidents and take lives? The same ones, I suspect, that are employed by auto manufacturers to justify selling cars with the feature. Continue reading
F.D.R.’s Irresponsible Deception
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reputation is at an all-time high these days, thanks to reflections on his handling of The Great Depression prompted by our current financial mess. But looking at F.D.R.’s record risks ethics whiplash, as a new book again reminds us. Continue reading
Reverse the Curse of Norman Mineta
The aftermath of the failed underwear bomber has profiling up for debate again, with all the predictable participants taking their predictable stances. Meanwhile, the U.S. has finally crossed the divide into a form of profiling, designating travelers from specific hotbeds of terrorist activity as subject to a “full-body pat down.” Over on the “Newt Gingrich Letter at Human Events.com, Newt Gingrich proclaims that “it’s time to profile.”
Gingrich is wrong. It has been time to profile for nine years. Continue reading
TMZ’s JFK: Fake Photo, Same Ethics Questions
I love this, I really do. Yes, the JFK photo found by TMZ and trumpeted elsewhere, including here, is a hoax.
Since the photo conveys no new or false information about JFK’s proclivities, its main significance is that TMZ was sloppy, and since it is well established that it traffics in gossip and rumor anyway, this means Ethics Alarms and others were gullible and careless.
I apologize.
A few points:
- All the questions raised in the post stand.
- This reaffirms my conviction that postng a hoax of any kind on the web, whether photo or otherwise, without clearly designating it as such, is unethical.
- Let us all give thanks for “The Smoking Gun.”
Remembering Ted Kennedy Fairly
Today, on the Sunday before the new year, the New York Times Magazine has its annual issue of brief profiles of famous, important, and not-so-famous-but-still-important people who breathed their last in the past twelve months. It is always a fascinating collection; for me, the exercise is a slap in the face, focusing my wandering attention upon how many remarkable lives and achievements have escaped my awareness and proper appreciation—and this is only a small, random collection. The last of the profiles, however, was about a life I knew a lot about: Ted Kennedy. In my view, the piece fails an ethical imperative. It doesn’t mention Mary-Jo Kopechne. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 