Ethics Crisis » Fun

Ethics Crisis Blog is baaaaack!

BL Ochman — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:55:02 +0000

Ethics – corporate, government, personal – are too important for us not to bring back Ethics Crisis Blog. I created this blog in 2004 – pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook wall posts – for a client who’s since moved into another business.

I never took Ethics Crisis Blog down because people kept voting on the confessions, and it soon became apparent that you’d probably have to be a mass murderer for people to collectively condemn your unethical behavior.

So, here we are in the most ethics-challenged era, perhaps ever, and I figure people might like a friendly place to ANONYMOUSLY (really, I don’t know who the confessors are) confess their ethics transgressions so the rest of us can sit in judgment. :>)

Welcome back.

The Ethics of Metaverse Journalism

BL Ochman — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:02:46 +0000

Wagner James Au, publisher of Second World Notes, the Second Life newspaper, is making a “my willy nilly effort to come up with a workable ethics for reporting in the metaverse.”
He questions whether reporting on recent grid attacks that have brought down the world gives the attackers an award by giving them publicity. He writes: “Attentive readers may be inclined to see parallels to conundrums from real world journalism– for example, when the media gives prominent coverage to a minor terrorist attack, are they just reporting the news, or unintentionally becoming an abettor after the fact, while unnecessarily alarming the public?”

In New Poll on Ethics, Public Ranks Congress Lower Than Pirates

BL Ochman — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:14:56 +0000

In a troubling omen for the upcoming midterm elections, a new poll on ethics released today indicates that the public for the first time ranks congressmen lower than pirates, says The Borowitz Report.

The poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, asked likely voters to rate one hundred different professions according to their ethics. Congressmen, near the bottom of the list, bested only crack dealers and lawyers.
“Over and over again, pirates received higher marks than congressmen in this survey,” said Crandall Pritchard, who supervised the poll for the University of Minnesota. “We heard comments like, ‘Sure, pirates make people walk the plank and will slit their throats for a doubloon, but at least they would keep their hands off congressional pages.”
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, under fire of late because of the congressional page scandal, said that the poll showing that pirates are more ethical than congressmen is mush ado about nothing: “I don’t think this reflects the unpopularity of Congress so much as it reflects the surging popularity of pirates.” popularity of pirates.”

An Ethical Grey Area

BL Ochman — Fri, 19 May 2006 16:01:44 +0000

Yes Men Survival Ball Yanks Halliburton’s Chain

BL Ochman — Fri, 12 May 2006 19:48:53 +0000

The Yes Men, a group of environmental and corporate ethics activists pushing a “SurvivaBall”, designed to save corporate executives from the effects of global warming, pulled a prank on Halliburton at the Catastrophic Loss conference held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Amelia Island, Florida.
The group, which has pulled similar stunts on Dow Chemical Co. and the World Trade Organization, says it presented the phony global-warming-protection suits — priced at $100 million each, nonetheless — to show that corporations are more concerned about profits than taking expensive steps to reduce carbon emissions to reduce global warming.

The Yes Men distributed a phony press release through e-mail and set up a website, similar to the real Halliburton site. The orb was described as “…essentially a gated community for one.”

“We were targeting Halliburton because they’re the most iconic example of companies profiting from global warming, climate changes and even natural disasters like in New Orleans,” said a Yes Man who called himself Andy Bichlbaum.

Mr. Bichlbaum said they’re not sure if what they do is legal, but said they think they’re moral.

“Is it legal to do what we’re doing? Technically, we don’t know. But we’ve never encountered any trouble with this thing,” he said.
“The SurvivaBall builds on Halliburton’s reputation as a disaster and conflict industry innovator,” said Wolf. “Just as the Black Plague led to the Renaissance and the Great Deluge gave Noah a monopoly of the animals, so tomorrow’s catastrophes could well lead to good – and industry must be ready to seize that good.”

Ethics Light

BL Ochman — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:29:19 +0000

via NoisyRoom.net