There has been an increase, it seems, in news reports about outrageously abusive, sadistic, unfeeling or generally unethical conduct by employers, either because the nation’s economic problems are bringing out the worst in people, or because I’m getting better at finding them. This story settles it: I’m establishing a new regular category, “Unethical Employer of the Week.” And there couldn’t be a more deserving initial awardee than William Ernst, the owner of a chain of QC Marts in Iowa and Illinois. Continue reading
sadism
Consenting To Be Beaten
Bought and paid for.
Ethics Alarms has frequently used the analogy of a drunk paid by cruel bar patrons to dance for their entertainment as an example of how using money to persuade a desperate, impaired or foolish individual to allow himself to endure humiliation or harm is still unethical and cruel, despite the supposed “consent” of the victim. PETA’s attempt to pay Nadya Suleman, a.k.a. “Octomom” was recently cited in this context in the post about painting homes as billboards. Now, from St. Petersburg, Florida comes an even more horrible example. Shefights.net, a locally operated website that sells videos (for up to $900) of scantily clad or semi-nude women beating up men, has been paying homeless men, drug addicts and street alcoholics $50 for submitting to 12-minute videotaped beatings by attractive females. Continue reading
Unethical Christmas Gift of the Week: the Remote-Controlled Tarantula!
"Merry Christmas!"
The picture shows a real tarantula, but trust me—Hammacheer Schlemmer’s remote-controlled version will work just as well for frightening the arachnaphobic senior in in your family into cardiac arrest on Christmas morning…from up to twenty-five feet away!
The delightful toy “scurries back and forth across flat surfaces” just like the real thing, and there is even a special feature that allows the operator to make the eight hairy legs “twitch,” for that extra dose of terrifying realism. It’s a bargain, at just under $30.
Of course, as the National Sick Toy Association always reminds us, “Remote-controlled tarantula’s don’t scare people to death; people with remote-controlled tarantulas scare people to death.” Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 