Archive for the ‘Ethics-general’ Category
August 13, 2010
Keeping in shape has gotten easier for me since I got an iPhone and discovered a PBS program, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet. I listen to this on a podcast on my iPhone, and it makes the hour at the gym go by much faster.
This week’s program is called Revealing Ramadan, and Krista describes it this way:
“14 Muslims, in their own words, speak about the delights and gravity of Islam’s holiest month. Through vivid memories and light-hearted musings, they reveal the richness of Ramadan — as a period of intimacy, and of parties; of getting up when the world is quiet for breakfast and prayers with one’s family; of breaking the fast every day after nightfall in celebration and prayers with friends and strangers.”
I found this a fascinating window into Islam, American style. It’s a little foreign to a non-observant Jew like me, but what was so striking to me was not its foreignness but its sameness—nothing about the people speaking seemed any different from the family next door—to any one. I wish the people railing about mosques at Ground Zero, in Murfreesboro, or Temecula, could listen to the stories these Americans—and one Brit—tell.
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Tags:American Muslims, ethics, Ground Zero, iPhone, Krista Tippet, Murfreesboro, podcast, Ramadan, Revealing Ramadan, Speaking of Faith, Temecula
Posted in Ethics-general, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
August 10, 2010
I recently offered a wallet-sized code of ethics to replace — or at least, mitigate — the bureaucratic system of rules, supervision and oversight that stifles initiative and deadens workers’ spirits. The ethical guides were simple:
I will:
· Do my best at work
· Avoid conflict of interest
· Speak truth to power
· Be a good citizen
· Shun any private gain from public employment
· Act impartially
· Treat others the way I would like to be treated
· Report waste, fraud, and corruption
When in doubt, my test is can I explain my actions to my mother or to my child.
Many people are hungry for this sort of simple, straightforward guide and have asked me how they can introduce such a tool in their organizations. Here’s what to do next:
· Decide on your organization’s principles of ethical behavior.
· Print wallet-size cards (plastic is best) and hand them out like crazy.
· Teach: look for coachable moments to align people with the principles.
First, what’s right for your organization? Chances are the code isn’t exactly right for you. Give the workers a chance to own the code. Announce that you’re in the market for a new code of ethics that can fit on a wallet-size card. Offer a $100 prize (your $100!) for the best one submitted, and (more…)
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Tags:Bureaucracy, code of ethics, ethics, mission statement, Organizational ethics, oversight, unenforceables
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, Government, Organizational | 2 Comments »
August 9, 2010
I came home from my tenth grade history class and announced, “Today we learned about the fall of Christian Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans, and what a tragedy it was.” My father corrected me; “Not for the Jews, it wasn’t.” He went on to explain that the Ottoman Sultan, Beyazit I, in 1492 invited all the Jews of Spain, just expelled by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, to come live in peace in the Ottoman Empire, then the world’s most powerful. Thousands did, and lived peacefully and prosperously there for centuries, to this day.
Jews and Muslims have gotten on well for most of the time since the days of Mohammed, who honored Jews as “people of the book.” It’s easy today, looking at the enmity between Israel and some of her neighbors, to forget that Jewish culture thrived as never before or since in the “golden age of Jewish culture” in Muslim-ruled Spain, or that the Muslim Beyazit rescued the Jews of Spain and Portugal. Even the Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Middle East is over land, not religion.
So it’s nice to see so many Jews standing up for the rights of American Muslims to build Cordoba House, a community center with prayer area, 2-1/2 blocks from New York’s Ground Zero. NBC News reported, “Jewish Leaders Gather to Support Ground Zero Mosque.”
And Washington’s Jewish Week criticized the position of the Anti-Defamation League (more…)
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Tags:1492, Anti-Defamation League, Cordoba House, expulsion of Jews from Spain, fall of Constantinople, golden age of Jewish culture, Israel, Jerrold Nadler, Jewish Community Center of Manhattan, Jewish Leaders, Jews, Michael Bloomberg, Mohammed, mosque at Ground Zero, Muslims, Ottoman Empire, Ottomans, people of the book, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Scott Stringer, Shalom Center, Sultan Beyazit I, Washington Jewish Week
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 3 Comments »
August 1, 2010
The Anti-Defamation League has in the past stood against, not only anti-Semitism, but against all kinds of racial and religious bigotry. Those days sadly are gone. In a shameful statement the ADL summed up its position this way:
“Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.”
So if you are a victim and you blame Islam—not al Qaeda—for 9/11, we should honor your bigotry by preventing American Muslims from building a community center/mosque 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero. For a Jewish group to make such a statement is remarkable, and especially reprehensible. It wasn’t long ago that Jews too were told to be unobtrusive because their presence where they were unwanted would cause pain (more…)
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Tags:9/11, al Qaeda, Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitism, bigotry, diversity, ethics, fivethirtyeight.com, Ground Zero, Islam, Islamic Center, lunch counters, Nate Silver, polling, religious freedom
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 7 Comments »
July 30, 2010
With all the criminality in public life, why am I so disturbed with Charlie Rangel? Jack Marshall put his metaphorical finger on it in his EthicsAlarm blog: Rangel is an ethics corrupter. Marshall defines it this way:
“An ethics corrupter is a public figure of high accomplishment, a hero who encourages his admirers and followers to allow the hero’s achievements to excuse his flawed character and values…The ethics corrupter…weakens the public’s resistance to corruption and misconduct, and encourages a culture of privilege in which an individual is allowed to break the law and rules in direct proportion to his or her perceived value to society.”
As I’m disgusted by Rangel’s conduct, I’m alarmed by the people defending it. The only hopeful sign is that the House ethics committee, comprising four Democrats and four Republicans, brought charges against Rangel, and will try him on these charges, with the possible penalty upon conviction ranging from admonition to expulsion from the House of Representatives.
If Rangel had the tiniest sense of public responsibility or honor he would resign. But he doesn’t and he won’t. He’ll probably cost the Democrats control of the House in the coming election but he doesn’t care. And if they let him, neither should we.
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Tags:bribery, Charlie Rangel, ethics, ethics corrupter, EthicsAlarm, House Ethics Committee, Jack Marshall, tax cheat
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 1 Comment »
July 29, 2010
I got my weekly email yesterday from Newt Gingrich headed “No Mosque at Ground Zero.” It was quite scary—a 1500-word letter exposing Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as “an apologist for Sharia supremacy” who “actually compared Sharia law with the Declaration of Independence, and who is spreading “moral confusion about the nature of radical Islamism.”
Newt leads up to this indictment of Rauf by warning us that “radical Islamists” are trying to impose Sharia law in parts of America, “no matter how deeply [it conflicts with] the democratic values undergirding our constitutional system.”
He then leads us through horrors like honor killings of family members, spousal torture and rape, and even threats against a disabled student with a [unclean] guide dog—all permitted by Newt’s version of Sharia.
Then Newt reveals the true intentions of Imam Rauf: to disarm America in the fight against “radical Islamism.”
Except it’s all a lie. Here’s what Rauf wrote recently on the subject of Sharia. It’s not about beheadings and amputations as a form of justice, or about women being stoned or forced into hiding behind burkas. Those things are not Shariah, but rather part of the penal codes in countries that deny fairness and justice, according to Rauf.
The mosque issue isn’t about defending American values against “radical Islamism,” like Newt says. It’s about defending American values against blind prejudice, like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence say.
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Tags:amputations, beheadings, burkas, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, ethics, honor killings, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, mosque at Ground Zero, Newt Gingrich, radical Islamism, Sharia
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
July 22, 2010
I feel for Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who has devoted his life to building bridges between Islam and the West, and is now leading the effort to build a mosque in New York 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero. When I was nine years old I learned to defend myself against bullies who beat me up because I had killed Christ. I didn’t know what the accusation meant, but I knew I was being picked on because I was Jewish, and I’d better learn to fight off these guys.
Most of the opposition to the mosque is because Imam Rauf killed 3000 Americans on 9/11. Or if he didn’t personally do it, his people (“they”) did it. Just as everybody is connected within six degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon, all Muslims are connected within six degrees to some terrorist. Or to someone who gave money to a charity that gave money to terrorists. Or who has a cousin who once said that Hamas had a point.
In the 1950s Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee tarred innocents with guilt by association. Today’s haters don’t even need association to make their accusations, they just need something within six degrees of separation.
Thursday’s New York Times has a good analysis by Robert Wright of the accusations against Imam Rauf, (more…)
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Tags:9/11, anti-Semitism, Bill of Rights, Bin Laden, ethics, Feisal Abdul Rauf, Geopolitics, Ground Zero, guilt by association, Hamas, House Un-American Activities Committee, Kevin Bacon, mosque, Muslims, New York Times, Robert Wright, Senator Joe McCarthy, six degrees of separation
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
July 22, 2010
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was the only Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote for the confirmation of Elena Kagan as Supreme Court Justice. I can’t improve on what Jack Marshall (who I believe to be a Republican) headlined and wrote in his EthicsAlarms.com blog. Anybody who hopes the American government can work again should read it.
“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) delivered the following remarks as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Obviously Ethics Alarms approves of Graham’s vote and reasoning, as it is consistent with what I believe is the most ethical, fair and responsible course for all Republican senators. His statement, however, is extraordinary in its appeal to the best instincts of ethical public servants, and rather than just a link (the text comes from The Hill), I think proper respect and admiration dictate a full presentation. It embodies fairness, civility, professionalism. respect and dignity, as well as the ideals of collaborative government.”
Here is the entire Marshall posting.
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Tags:civility, confirmation, Elena Kagan, Ethics Hero, Ethics Quote of the Week, EthicsAlarms, fairness, Jack Marshall, Lindsey Graham, professionalism. respect and dignity, public service, Republican senators, Senate Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 2 Comments »
July 21, 2010
When you screw up, say you screwed up, apologize, and attempt to repair the damage, Kudos to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who screwed up big-time yesterday by firing Shirley Sherrod on the basis of a sharply edited right wing video. He did the right thing today. The following is from Politico:
“POLITICO Breaking News:
“Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has personally apologized to Shirley Sherrod, the employee who was forced to resign Monday after videotapes surfaced of her making remarks that initially sounded racially discriminatory. Vilsack said Sherrod was “extraordinarily gracious” in accepting his apology and said he offered her a job that would take advantage of her “unique experiences” working with black and white farmers in Georgia. Sherrod, he said, wanted to think about it before answering. “This was my decision and it’s a decision I regret,” Vilsack said, saying he received no White House pressure to force Sherrod to resign. Vilsack plans to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus later Wednesday to discuss Sherrod.”
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Tags:apology, screw-up, Sherrod, Vilsack
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 3 Comments »
Keeping in shape has gotten easier for me since I got an iPhone and discovered a PBS program, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet. I listen to this on a podcast on my iPhone, and it makes the hour at the gym go by much faster.
Ethics Bob 