role-models

Marion Barry and The Julie Principle

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
Poor Julie. Luckily for her, she didn't exist. Washington, D.C. does.

Poor Julie. Luckily for her, she didn’t exist. Washington, D.C. does.

The Washington Post just discovered that D.C. Councilman Marion Barry is unethical, and boy, is it steamed!

Well, that’s not quite fair. The Post editors authored an editorial about Barry’s latest example of his complete rejection of ethical principles other than his guiding star, which is “If it’s good for Marion Barry, it’s good for everyone else.” Barry recently published a self-congratulatory, delusional autobiography (I nearly wrote about it, but I was afraid doing so would make me nauseous), “Mayor for Life,” and right in the acknowledgments, he announces that one of his council aides, LaToya Foster, spent “nights, weekends, and many long hours of assistance” working on book at taxpayer expense.  Using D.C. government employees as his personal staff was standard operating procedure for Barry during his various pre- and post-crack terms as mayor, so there is little chance that he played it straight this time. No chance, really. A Washington City Paper investigation of calendar entries and emails showed that Foster’s work on Barry’s book “stretched far beyond her off-hours and into the D.C. Council workday, an arrangement that appears to violate D.C. Council ethics rules.”

The Post should stop editorializing about Barry’s ethics and instead focus attention where it might do some good: the D.C. voters and citizens he has thoroughly exploited and corrupted. Barry is a prime example of what I have dubbed The Julie Principle, evoking the famous lyrics of Julie’s lament in “Show Boat,” “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly…”   If Oscar Hammerstein was writing those lyrics today about Barry, the song, sung by voters of D.C.’s Ward 8, would go,

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly”

Marion Barry will cheat, steal and lie..

Can’t help loving that man of mine. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Kiefer Sutherland

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

“I’ve been mystified by this. You have to understand that we’re not writing foreign policy. This is a dramatic television show, and Jack threatening to blow someone’s knees off because he wants information is a dramatic device to show how urgent or desperate a situation is. It should not be taken as this is what we think the CIA should be doing.”

—–“24” star, as “Jack Bauer,” Kiefer Sutherland, expressing his bewilderment at criticism of his show for depicting a hero who resorts to torture repeatedly, in an interview with United’s in-flight magazine, “Hemispheres.”

jack_bauer_tortureWe shouldn’t criticize actors for not being rocket scientists, or even ethicists. Nonetheless, this comment shows a remarkable ignorance of how a society passes on values and virtues, and the role played by literature, legends and pop culture.

Sutherland is the hero of his show, one of the good guys. What our society depicts the good guys as doing, the values they hold, the virtues they display, the goals they seek and the methods they use to achieve them, both reflects the values of our culture and sends the message that these are the kinds of conduct that the culture wants to encourage. Celebrating as heroes individuals who routinely kill when they are not protecting themselves or the innocent, engage in cruelty, theft, or the abuse of others, or unapologetic law-breaking encourages our younger generations to regard such anti-social conduct as defensible, or even the norm. Continue reading →

#!@&! Ethics Dunce and Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments
"Stay classy, Los Angeles!"

“Stay classy, Los Angeles!”

Let me see: What epic event would justify an elected leader, public figure and inherent role model intentionally doing his best to undermine beleaguered efforts by parents, teachers, employers, Federal regulators and ethics blog authors to protect the vital cultural values of civility and respect from the onslaught of the boorish, inconsiderate and inarticulate who would make obscenity part of everyday discourse?

World peace? Curing cancer? Ending poverty? Nah. The occurrence so significant that Los Angeles’s mayor thinks it justifies his use of the vague and slovenly adjective “fucking” in a planned statement is  the L.A. Kings’ Stanley Cup victory. You know…pro hockey? Where they bat that little rubber thing around the ice?

Occasionally, public figures like Joe Biden (but he has…well, you know…issues) have accidentally tossed f-bombs into unwilling ears canals, but never before has an elected official set out to do so. It is irresponsible, and demonstrates how America is increasingly electing children to high office. If the Mayor of L.A. thinks that a hockey game victory provides a sufficient pass to issue officially sanctioned vulgarity to America, what chance do parents and teachers have when they try to instill manners—that is, routine respect for those we interact with— into their young charges? Answer: less of a chance than they had before Mayor Garcetti opened his smug, pandering, dirty mouth. Continue reading →

Further Thoughts On “The Vampire Candidate”

/ Jack Marshall / 90 Comments

dracula for congress

I don’t want to make this Vampire Day, but after reading the comments so far on today’s Ethics Quiz involving Florida Congressional candidate/ fantasy vampire role-play enthusiast Jake Rush, I realize that the original post omitted some important points and queries. Here, in no particular order, are my further thoughts:

  • The Ick Factor? Both conservative and liberal commentators are ridiculing Rush, essentially concluding that his hobby disqualifies him as a serious candidate. The most quoted source referred to the images embraced by Rush’s role-playing group as “disturbing,” “bizarre,” and “unsettling.” Do these reactions signal a rejection of Rush’s values, or is this a clear-cut example of the “Ick Factor,” which is often mistaken for unethical conduct? Strange does not mean wrong or unethical.
  • Trust. When we elect leaders, we must trust them. “Strange” by definition suggests unpredictability; if we don’t understand why people do what they do, it is hard for us to know how they will behave, and if we don’t know how they will behave, we can’t rationally trust them.
  • Integrity. I should have raised the issue of integrity, for it is critical to the problem. Integrity is essential to trust, and a candidate like Rush raises the question: “Who, or what, is this guy?” Is he a “straight-shooting” conservative who likes to play vampire in his spare time, just like some politicians like to play poker or watch synchronized swimming (now that’s what I call weird), or is he a wannabe creature of the night who is just playing a conservative Republican in the daytime to conform to the expectations of conventional society? If there is doubt about that, then his integrity is in question.

Continue reading →

KABOOM! And THIS Is Why Teachers Need An Ethics Code

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
Actor-Teacher Richard Graffanino, who knows how to play a teacher, but not how to act like one.

Actor-Teacher Richard Graffanino, who knows how to play a teacher, but not how to act like one.

Yes, there apparently is an Actor-Teacher Showing His Middle School Class Film Clips Of Himself In Bed With A Naked Actress As He Regales The Students With His Romantic Designs On Another Teacher While Wagering On NFL Games Using Food As Bets Principle.

The principle: such teachers get fired, and are damn lucky if that’s the worst thing that happens to them.

I sure hope the A-TSHNSCFCOHIBWANAAHRTSWHRDOATWWONGUFABP doesn’t come into play often, but nothing surprises me any more.

River Dell Middle School teacher Richard Graffanino, teaches impressionable young teenaged minds, and he also acts professionally, with roles on “Law & Order,” “30 Rock,” and some independent films.  He was suspended in September of 2013 after complaints from female students, and a sexual harassment claim by a fellow teacher. It looks like he is going to be fired, following an arbitrator’s report last month that found that Graffanino showed a sexually-oriented, inappropriate video, featuring him, in class; discussed his personal relationship with another teacher; and was “inappropriately using food when interacting with students.” Continue reading →

Of COURSE There’s An Unwed and Pregnant Catholic School Teacher Principle….Don’t Be Silly.

/ Jack Marshall / 250 Comments

pregnant nunButte Central teacher Shaela Evenson says she is planning on suing the Montana Catholic middle school that fired her for getting pregnant without the benefit of a husband. Whatever it is she is thinking (and whatever it is her lawyer is encouraging to keep thinking), it’s unethical, and I doubt the law will have much sympathy with it either.

  • She signed a contract promising “to respect the moral and religious teachings of the Catholic Church in both her professional and personal life”—a bit broad for my tastes, but this episode was pretty obviously exactly the kind of thing such a clause was designed to forbid, and nobody forced her to agree to it.

  • As Patrick Haggarty, the superintendent of Catholic schools for the diocese, said,  Evenson “made a willful decision to violate the terms of her contract.” It’s hard to argue that getting pregnant before marriage isn’t a willful decision, if she wasn’t raped.

  • Haggarty also notes, “The Catholic moral teaching is that the sacrament of marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman.” That sounds about right. Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms MailBox: “Does The Naked Teacher Principle Apply To Bodybuilding Teachers…or Mothers?”

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Bodybuilder mom

Since the NTP is back in the news—Kaitlin Pearson, whom Ethics Alarms dubbed the perfect example of the Naked Teacher Principle, was allowed to continue her job as a teacher’s aide—this is a propitious time to address a question I received off-site by an esteemed reader, who sent me a photo similar to the one above (but of another female competitive bodybuilder/mom—who is 50 years old) and commented, “This is a picture of a local soccer mom with a teenage son. Is she setting a good example for her son, and does her conduct trigger the Naked Teacher Principle?”

Let me finish with Kaitlin first. I personally wouldn’t have let her continue, if only because she was not forthcoming about her other pursuits when she interviewed for the job. That doesn’t mean that the resolution of her particular case is in defiance of the NTP. It states, Continue reading →

Unethical and Unjust Firing of the Week: The MSNBC Cheerios Tweeter

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

CheeriosWhen reader Scott Jacobs sent me a link to the now infamous MSNBC tweet that presumed that all “right-wingers,” which in MSNBC Universe means anyone who doesn’t want to put Barack Obama on Mount Rushmore, were horrified by the very existence of bi-racial families, I honestly didn’t understand what he was telling me.  MSNBC’s official position is that Republicans are racists, so he couldn’t have been referring to that….everybody knows that. (“But did you know Old McDonald was a really bad speller?”) And what racists approve of bi-racial families? So the tweet wasn’t illogical or dealing in rationalizations. The tweet—oh, here it is:

“Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Justin Bieber Enabler, Adidas

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
today-justin-bieber-mugshot

You have to admit, the kid takes a great mugshot…

Sure, why wouldn’t a multinational athletic shoe company want an irresponsible, sociopathic drunken creep as the face of its product?

With any half-ethical company, the news that the celebrity it is paying a fortune to endorse its wares to consumers has just completed a six month period of embarrassments with an arrest for drag-racing under the influence would be followed immediately with a pink slip and an apology. Not Adidas.

No, despite the news of the continued unraveling of the 19-year-old Justin Bieber,—previously seen egging his next door neighbor’s home—who seems determined to emulate the worst of spoiled child idol cautionary tales, Adidas announced that Bieber is still their boy, which means that it is still promoting him as an icon and role model, and officially communicating the position that a teen’s impaired driving is no big deal—certainly nothing to lower the teen’s status in the eyes of a major corporation. The company also signaled that it doesn’t care if its ethical shrug amounts to enabling and rewarding The Bieb’s self-destructive behavior, increasing the burgeoning odds that he ends up in the gutter, on a slab, or wort of all, in a pathetic reality show before he’s 30.

I know, I know: the company is taking a wait and see stance, which only means it is venal and irresponsible, and if Jeffrey Dahmer was their official Adidas-wearing superstar, and the kids who buy Adidas shoes didn’t care who he ate, Adidas would keep paying him millions too.

In these situations you only get one chance to show that you care about the values and conduct you endorse, and Adidas already missed it. It has no values.

But I guess most of us already knew that.

(I saw this coming, you know…)

___________________________________

Sources: TMZ, The Province

Kaitlin Pearson: First “Naked Teacher Principle” Subject of 2014, And Maybe The Most Perfect Naked Teacher Example Ever

/ Jack Marshall / 77 Comments

Kaitlin3

It’s 2014, and time for the first Naked Teacher Principle controversy. As it happens, this one may be the standard against which all others are judged.

Kaitlin Pearson, a Fitchburg, Massachusetts elementary school teaching assistant in the special education department at South Street Elementary School, was exposed, wait, no…busted….no, sorry, not that, er..outed as a well-publicized nude model when someone sent an anonymous package containing her “elegant implied nude” photos to the principal. (That’s the first thing that jumped into my mind when I saw the photo above, I can tell you; “Now there’s an elegant implied nude photo!”) She’s on paid leave now, and you never know what those wacky school administrators will do, but Kaitlin is most down-the-middle-of-the-alley example of the Naked Teacher Principle in action as I’ve ever seen:

1. She’s a teacher…

2. At an elementary school…

3. Who has her photo taken in mostly naked and sexually suggestive poses…

4. Has them posted on the web, where they are easily accessed under her name….

5. Has posted many of them herself….

6. Never alerted her employers to her alternate vocation, and in particular,

7. Didn’t explain this practice and its inevitable results when she was interviewing for the job. Continue reading →