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Ethics Dunce: Fashion Model Melissa Stetten

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Hideous.

We have covered this territory before: the unethical conduct of the cruel and arrogant conversant or correspondent who publicizes private communication over the internet in order to embarrass someone whose only offense was social awkwardness or a moment of bad judgment, and whose biggest mistake was trusting a heartless jerk.  It is the Golden Rule breach of breaches, and is social misconduct that shows a serious deficit in kindness, fairness and decency.

Model Melissa Stetten, however, takes the cake, except that models aren’t allowed to have cake. Flying in First Class  from New York to Los Angeles, Stetten found herself next to actor Brian Presley, who was apparently rendered weak-kneed and stupid in the proximity of such beauty, plus he was a little drunk. His flirtatious chit-chat was both awkward and  pompous, so Stetten, who, like most models, undoubtedly has the conversational skills of Dorothy Parker, decided to  live-tweet their conversation to her 30,000 followers.

Brian Presley, naturally, was humilated. His wife was probably furious with him. His fans now know him as a dork who trots out the lamest pick-up lines ever devised. He also, apparently, was in the midst of an alcoholic relapse, so naturally Stetten mocked him for that too in her tweets. (Her entire performance is available on the web; I’m not going to circulate it. Unlike the New York Timse, jI don’t believe that just because I have access to information  I should magnify the harm it can do by helping to circulate it.) Continue reading →

Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Post-Bail Update

/ Jack Marshall / 103 Comments

Sadly, still with a good head of steam...

George Zimmerman has been released on $150,000 bail, prompting more ethical misconduct from the media and the lynch mob on the Left:

  • Cable news was reporting that Martin’s parents are “devastated” at the news of Zimmerman’s release. They should not be devastated that an innocent man (in the eyes of the law) is not being forced to stay in prison for more than a year to await trial, and the fact that they are suggests that vengeance, not “justice”, is their true objective. Meanwhile, for CNN et al. to be reporting this as if releasing a defendant on bail is some kind of gift to Zimmerman or affront to Martin’s family is irresponsible and provocative. The news organizations have an obligation to explain that bail is based on the likelihood that the defendant is not a danger to others and not a flight risk. Zimmerman is neither: he turned himself into police as soon as he was charged, and has ties to the community. In America, we do not keep people in jail before they have been convicted unless it is absolutely unavoidable. Citizens interested in ‘justice” should not be devastated when any fellow citizen is afforded freedom up to and until his guilt of a crime has been proven. It is a right they may need themselves some day. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Jennifer Porter Gore, Rep. Keith Ellison’s Communications Director

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“As with all Twitter accounts a re-tweet is not an endorsement.  The congressman removed the tweet because it appeared to endorse use of a nasty term, which is not what we wanted.”

—-Rep. Keith Ellison’s (D-Minn) Communications Director, Jennifer Porter Gore, making a ridiculous and incredible defense of a re-tweet by the Congressman on Twitter, sending out a message from a supporter referring to Mitt Romney as ” a heartless douchebag.” Ellison has been among the most vocal of Congressional advocates for civility in public and political discourse.

Various media noted that the crude and uncivil tweet was an odd thing for the Congressman to adopt as his own, since he had repeatedly spoken on the need for civility, called for a tolerance pledge, and strongly supported the civility pledge promoted by the Jewish Council on Public Affairs. Yet Ellison, or someone whom he entrusted to run a Twitter account in his name, sent the “heartless douchebag” tweet around the Twittersphere.  When reporters started asking uncomfortable questions using words like “hypocritical”  Ellison’s office took the tweet down.  Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Eric Wemple

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Talk about ethics blindness.

Find that loose screw, Eric, and then tell Spike where it is...

On his Washington Post blog, Eric Wemple gushes like Old Faithful about sweet, contrite, courageous Spike Lee, who appropriately apologized (and paid an undisclosed sum) to the Florida couple whose address he had accidentally tweeted to help get George Zimmerman harassed, attacked or killed—that being his clear intent by trying to send Zimmerman’s address to the world, or more specifically, the New Black Panthers’ vigilantes. Wemple was blown away by Spike’s willingness to accept responsibility for his boneheadedness and admit he was wrong:

“Yet his reaction to the mishap rehabilitates the good name of an honest apology. Lee used no qualifiers, no minimizers, no excuses — and no ‘I am sorry if anyone took offense to my actions.’ Just plain regret and shame. Score a victory for the apology.”

So “I’m sorry I nearly got you killed; honest, I was trying to get that other guy killed!” is an impressive apology, is it? Continue reading →

What A Race! It’s A Thrill A Minute With Roseanne Barr Lapping Spike Lee As The Biggest Celebrity Dunce in The Trayvon Martin Ethics Train Wreck!

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

An earlier classy career high for Roseanne...mocking the National Anthem.

And you thought Spike Lee had established an unapproachable low point in celebrity, self-indulgent, arrogant irresponsibility by trying to tweet George Zimmerman’s address (all the better to get him killed), and inadvertently siccing the sickos on an elderly Florida couple who were minding their own business? How charmingly naive of you! For remember, no matter how ignorant and unethical a celebrity may be, there are always, always, bigger, more ethically clueless jerks and fools with an entry in Wikipedia and an itch to get back in the limelight.

A celebrity like…Roseanne Barr! She lapped Spike’s mean-spirited Twitter idiocy in his own chosen medium by… Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz (Trayvon Martin Ethics Train Wreck Edition): Spike Lee’s Incompetent Vigilantism

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

"Doh the Right Thing"??

When we left film director Spike Lee, he had entered Ethics Dunce Valhalla on board the Trayvon Martin Ethics Train Wreck Express for assisting vigilante efforts against Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman by tweeting the man’s address to his 240,000+ Twitter followers.

Now we learn that Lee tweeted the wrong address!

The residence is actually the home of David McClain, 72, and his wife Elaine, 70.  The couple has reportedly fled their home for the safety of a hotel room after being harassed by reporters, threatening mail and menacing  posts by Twitter and Facebook users. The woman has another son named William George Zimmerman, who lived with her in 1995 and still lives in Central Florida. He is no relation to the George Zimmerman involved in the shooting. Lee has removed the tweet the erroneous address, but it continues to be sent around by others, including the California man who sent the address to Lee in the first place.

This isn’t an especially difficult quiz, but I can’t resist the ironic conundrum of the bungled unethical act. So your Ethics Quiz for today is this:

Does the fact that Spike Lee tweeted the wrong address for George Zimmerman to assist those who planned vigilante action against him make his conduct more ethical, less ethical, or no difference at all? Continue reading →

“Do The Vicious And Stupid Thing”—A Spike Lee Production

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Ethics Dunce Extraordinaire: Director Spike Lee

The film director, writer, social critic, sports fan and incurable hot-head has apparently tweeted—twice— the home address of George Zimmerman, who is the man who shot Trayvon Martin.

Meanwhile, the New Black Panthers have placed a cash bounty on “capturing” Zimmerman, and he is also receiving death threats.

If someone uses the Lee-tweeted address to go and kill Zimmerman—certainly within the realm of possibility given the over-heated, emotional and irresponsible rhetoric over Martin’s death—Lee  won’t be prosecuted. But his conduct is vicious and criminal in spirit.

Well, Twitter has wrecked plenty of lives; it’s just a matter of time before it ends one. Spike Lee is just the man to make it happen.

There is no excuse for this.

 

Needed: An Ethics Alarm For Twitter

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Pat Heaton, Twitter road kill.

Twitter, I have concluded, is itself an ethics trap. What the social networking site allows one to do is to take the usual, daily, routine moments of bad judgment, bad manners, carelessness meanness, incivility, indiscretion and stupidity that we all are guilty of on a regular basis, and magnify their perceived harm and significance exponentially. For the famous, this is especially perilous—witness “Everybody Loves Raymond” star Patricia Heaton, one of Hollywood’s few  open conservatives. She decided to join the Fluke-Limbaugh Ethics Train Wreck with a snotty tweet (“If every Tweaton sent Georgetown Gal one condom, her parents wouldn’t have to cancel basic cable, & she would never reproduce — sound good?”), and it has turned into a career crisis. Pre-Twitter, such a sentiment could have been shared orally with a few friends in snark-fest, or sent as an e-mail to a few trusted associates. But the tweet was viewed as piling on, which it was.

Even the non-famous are at risk: many women were outed on various blogs as idiots for tweeting after the Grammys how much they would like to be beaten up by Singer Chris Brown. Nobody knows when a badly thought out or offensive tweet will be re-tweeted into immortality. Then there is Twitter negligence. Pop idol Justin Bieber just engaged in that form of unethical Twitter conduct. Instead of sending a partial phone number to one friend, he sent it to all of his thousands of followers, who then drove a poor innocent crazy by flooding him with over 1000 phone calls. Continue reading →

Charles M. Blow’s Bigoted Anti-Mormon Tweet, Chapter 2: Ironies, Regrets, and Hypocrisy on the Left

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Charles M. Blow, trapped in regret-apology hypocrisy. Fortunately for him, his paper doesn't care.

Charles M. Blow, the New York Times columnist who sent his followers an uncivil, unprofessional and bigoted tweet regarding Mitt Romney and his faith during Wednesday’s debate [“Let me just tell you this Mitt ‘Muddle Mouth’: I’m a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear.”] issued a fascinating…something...today in response to criticism, which did not come from the supposedly bigotry-sensitive left. He tweeted:

“Btw, the comment I made about Mormonism during Wed.’s debate was inappropriate, and I regret it. I’m willing to admit that with no caveats.”

It is fascinating to me that this is being called an apology by Blow’s supporters and conservative critics alike. If it is an apology, and that is open to dispute, I’d like someone to explain to me how Blow can use “regret” as a stand-in for “I apologize,” and yet the same commentators who are interpreting the word that way have insisted that President Obama’s repeated use of “regret”to refer to past U.S. foreign policy actions was not the equivalent of apologizing, and have in fact stated that this interpretation by conservative critics is “a lie.”

Among those who have defended the President in this way, I believe, is Charles M. Blow. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: NY Times Columnist Charles M. Blow, and the Times, If It Doesn’t Do Something About Him

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Behold the above tweet from last night, appearing on the Twitter feed of Charles M. Blow, a regular New York Times op-ed columnist. And note:

  • This is supposed to be a respected and respectable journalist of the preeminent U.S. newspaper, and he is sending gutter-level messages via social media, plus
  • …his tweet immediately descends to crude name-calling (“Muddle-Mouth”) aimed at a Republican presidential candidate, and
  • …goes lower still, making first a crude reference to underwear, and
  • …making the reference a religious slur as well. Continue reading →