April 4, 2011
Anti-Muslim prejudice is hurting America at home and abroad: at home because it divides Americans from each other and hurts our Muslim citizens, and abroad because it signals to many of the world’s billion Muslims that America is their enemy. Sometimes it leads directly to anti-American savagery, like last week’s murders in Afghanistan over the burning of the Quran by a deranged Christian pastor.
The prejudice can take root and spread because too many non-Muslim Americans know too little about their Muslim countrymen, or, indeed, about Islam. Katie Couric recently proposed, apparently in all seriousness, that to combat bigotry against Muslims, “Maybe we need a Muslim version of The Cosby Show.”
Faisal Abdul Rauf, imam of the make-shift mosque now holding prayers 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero in New York, is doing his part to contribute to inter-faith understanding. Last year he authored What’s Right with Islam is What’s Right With America, called by the Christian Science Monitor “An invigorating glimpse into the heart and mind of a wise Muslim seeking the higher ground.” Now he’s published a column in the Washington Post called Five myths about Muslims in America. The five myths are:
- American Muslims are foreigners.
- American Muslims are ethnically, culturally and politically monolithic.
- American Muslims oppress women.
- American Muslims often become “homegrown” terrorists
- American Muslims want to bring sharia law to the United States
The column is easy reading. If you care one way or the other about Muslims in America, I urge you to read this short article.
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Tags: Afghanistan murders, anti-Muslim prejudice, burning of the Quran, Christian Science Monitor, ethics, Faisal Abdul Rauf, Five myths about Muslims in America, Ground Zero mosque, Katie Couric, Muslim Americans, Muslims, prejudice, The Cosby Show, Washington Post, What's Right with Islam
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
April 1, 2011
CNN last week ran an excellent documentary about the controversy over a planned new mosque/community center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. It’s called Unwelcome: Muslims Next Door– Soledad O’Brien. The video runs 42 minutes. An excellent summary of it is here.
It’s upsetting to contrast how ordinary American are the Muslims of Murfreesboro with how fearful and suspicious are the mosque’s opponents. The idea that the American Muslims are “other” is reminiscent of similar arguments made about African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Jewish Americans, and, much earlier, Irish-Americans.
We Americans take pride in our diversity, and in America as a melting pot, but we still have the capacity to summon up a layer of hate and suspicion from just under the surface.
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Tags: American Muslims, anti-Semitism, CNN, diversity, ethics, hate, intolerance, Irish-Americans, Islamophobia, Japanese-Americans, melting pot, mosque, Murfreesboro, other, Soledad O'Brien, suspicion, Unwelcome: Muslims Next Door
Posted in Ethics-general, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
March 31, 2011
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The city of Anaheim, California isn’t easy to fool twice. In 1996 the city and the then-California Angels agreed to a long-term lease for Anaheim Stadium. The city agreed to spend $100 million to renovate the stadium, and the team agreed to change its name to include the word ‘Anaheim.’ Years later a new owner, Arte Moreno, weaseled out of the deal by changing the team’s name from Anaheim Angels to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim—or, universally known as the LA Angels. The city sued to reverse the change, but lost in court.
Now the Sacramento Kings NBA team is considering a move to Anaheim, and the Anaheim city council unanimously approved a $75 million bond deal Tuesday night to entice the Kings to move. The team would be known as the Anaheim Royals (there already is a Los Angeles Kings hockey team.) No Los Angeles Royals of Anaheim: the city won’t be fooled twice. Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait said that the team name would have “Anaheim as its first word and sole geographic identifier.”
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Tags: Anaheim, Anaheim Angels, Anaheim Royals, Anaheim Stadium, Arte Moreno, California Angels, ethics, LA Angels, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Sacramento Kings, Tom Tait
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | Leave a Comment »
March 20, 2011
I’ve written here about the remarkable honesty of—seemingly everybody—in Turkey. I got another example two days ago when our taksi stopped at our chosen restaurant in Gaziantep. The meter showed TL 7—about $4.00. Our friend Arzu Tutuk handed the driver a TL20 note. “Sorry, no change,” he said (in Turkish). “Here’s my card, just call me when you’ve finished dinner and I’ll take you back to your hotel. We can settle then.”
And so we did. After a sumptuous dinner at Imam Cağdas Arzu called the driver, he picked us up within two minutes, and she settled the bill for the round trip.
What’s remarkable about this story? The cab driver trusted a total stranger to go out of her way to pay him, when she could have stiffed him with impunity. It never occurred to the driver or to Arzu that the trust could be broken.
Hooray—again—for Turkish honesty.
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Tags: Arzu Tutuk, ethics, Gaziantep, honesty, trust, Turkey, Turkish cab drivers
Posted in Ethics-general, International | 5 Comments »
March 8, 2011
Jack Marshall writes that Republicans in the Montana State Legislature have proposed “The Code of the West” as Montana’s State Code . Not a bad idea. See Jack’s Ethics Alarm column here.
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Tags: Code of the West, EthicsAlarms, Jack Marshall, Montana
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 7, 2011
Planning for a Muslim community center in lower Manhattan, 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero, was proceeding in an orderly fashion. A sponsor had purchased the former Burlington Coat Factory outlet, slightly damaged by debris from the 9/11 attack, and a Muslim Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, was holding regular Friday prayers while the municipal rules were being followed to get final approval, which came last July, when New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission declared that the building wasn’t a historic landmark. I wrote about the process here.
But the hate-mongers had just barely started their ugly work, Blogger Pamela Geller got traction with her rants equating Islam with 9/11, and now boasts about her “SRO crowd at CPAC [the Conservative Political Action Committee—a powerful force in republican politics] and a packed house at the St. Luke’s Theatre in Manhattan,” for her “documentary,” The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks.
The trailer is short, and all fair-minded people should see it, as the guiding force behind opposition to the Park 51 project in lower Manhattan, and to other mosques in California, Tennessee, and around the USA.
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Tags: 9/11 Attacks, Anti-Muslim, Burlington Coat Factory, CPAC, ethics, Feisal Abdul Rauf, Ground Zero, hate-mongers, Landmarks Preservation Commission, Muslim community center, Pamela Geller, Park 51, St. Luke's Theatre, The Ground Zero Mosque
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
March 2, 2011
Brigham Young is a regional basketball power, having gotten to the NCAA tournament 25 times, even though they never got past the round of eight. But this was to be their year: the Cougars are 27-2, rated third in the nation and in line for a top seed in March madness.
Their star is all-American guard Jimmer Fredette, who is supported by a solid group led by 6-foot-9 forward Brandon Davies, who averages 11 points and 6 rebounds a game. But Davies was dismissed from the Cougars team yesterday for an honor code violation. To the university the honor code is more important than a national championship.
Davies transgression, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, was having premarital sex with his girlfriend. That wouldn’t be a violation in most places, but BYU has its code and it takes its code seriously. BYU gets a Chip Kelly award for putting its code above winning.
__________
*Chip Kelly, Oregon Ducks football coach, suspended his star running back for poor sportsmanship right after Kelly’s first game as Ducks coach
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Tags: basketball, Brandon Davies, Brigham Young University, BYU, Chip Kelly, Chip Kelly award, Cougars, ethics, honor code, Jimmer Fredette, March madness, national championship, NCAA tournament, premarital sex, Salt Lake Tribune
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | Leave a Comment »
February 24, 2011
Here’s another difference between the revolution in Wisconsin and the one in Egypt: Mubarak sent thugs into the middle of peaceful demonstrations to intimidate and maim his opponents. Gov. Scott Walker didn’t.
Oh, he thought about it, rolled it over on his tongue, but finally decided against—not because it was wrong, but because it might backfire. Walker was the victim of a prank phone caller who fooled the governor into thinking he was billionaire industrialist and big time political contributor David Koch.
Here’s the relevant part of the conversation. (Redstateupdate.com has the audio of the entire call here.)
Koch impersonator: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.
Walker: Y’know, the only problem with that, ’cause we thought about that. He then goes into a halting explanation that he’s winning, that the legislators and the public has turned against the teachers. Then:
We thought about that. My only fear would be if there were a ruckus caused is that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor has got to settle to avoid all these problems.
Impersonators brought down ACORN and damaged Planned Parenthood. Has one just mortally wounded Gov. Walker and his anti-union campaign? You don’t have to be an ethicist to be horrified that he would consider for a second sending thugs into a peaceful mass demonstration Stay tuned.
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Tags: ACORN, David Koch, Egypt revolution, ethics, impersonators, Planned Parenthood, prank caller, Redstateupdate.com, Scott Walker, teachers, troublemakers, Wisconsin governor
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 1 Comment »
February 21, 2011
Revolution in the air in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya, and…Wisconsin? The Wisconsin brouhaha, unlike the others, seems not to have any good guys: EthicsAlarms.com does its usual good job of fairly laying out the good and bad, the credit and the blame. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, the runaway Democratic senators, the public employee unions, and the teachers all have some right and some wrong about their positions. Except the teachers, whose behavior is totally reprehensible.
Thousands of Wisconsin teachers, prohibited from striking by state law, falsely claimed to be sick and took days off to demonstrate in the state capital. They scored a twofer, both neglecting their young charges and setting an example that lying to your employer in your own self interest is acceptable.
Public servants are under fire all over the US in this time of budget crises. The Wisconsin teachers by their dishonest and irresponsible behavior seem to confirm the worst stereotypes about public employees.
When the Boston police went out on strike in 1919, Gov. Calvin Coolidge stood by his commissioner who fired the strikers, famously announcing, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” When America’s air traffic controllers broke the law prohibiting strikes by federal workers in 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired over 11,000 who had refused to return to work.
Coolidge and Reagan showed backbone and the public embraced their actions. Time for the Wisconsin school boards to show their backbone and fire the teachers who lie to their employers and harm the children they are supposed to teach.
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Tags: air traffic controllers strike, Boston police strike, budget crises, Calvin Coolidge, Egypt, ethics, EthicsAlarms.com, Gov. Scott Walker, public employee unions, Public servants, Reagan, Revolution, runaway Democratic senators, schoolteachers, Wisconsin
Posted in Education, Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
February 17, 2011
Everybody in politics knows that federal spending is unsustainable: ending earmarks, eliminating waste, cutting non-defense discretionary spending won’t make more difference than baling out a sinking ship with a teacup. Drastic action is called for. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security have to be cut back or they’ll bankrupt the nation.
But our political leaders run from the problem. In the debate last year over health care reform, Republicans accused proponents of wanting to ration health care, and the Democrats, instead of saying, “Yes, it’s rationed now and we’ll have to ration it a lot more,” denied and denied. “Not us!”
Now come three prominent Republicans to speak truth to power—to the voting public.
Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) grabbed the third rail of American politics when he told an American Enterprise Institute audience, “You’re going to have to raise the retirement age for Social Security. Oh, I just said it. And I’m still standing here. I did not vaporize into the carpeting, and I said it.”
Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) was even bolder—and more comprehensive—in a thoughtful speech to CPAC ( the Conservative Political Action Conference) in Washington. He told the right wing audience that his own party hasn’t tackled the problem, dealing instead with trifles: “Talking much more about [earmarks], or ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’ trivializes what needs to be done and misleads our fellow citizens to believe that easy answers are available.” Instead Daniels proposed cutting defense, and radically changing Social Security and Medicare Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: American Enterprise Institute, and abuse, Chris Christie, Conservative Political Action Conference, earmarks, ethics, federal entitlements, federal spending, fraud, health care rationing, health care reform, House Budget Committee, Medicaid, Medicare, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Politico, Republicans, retirement age, Sam Goldwyn Awards, Social Security, third rail, truth to power, waste
Posted in Ethics-general, Finance, Government, Health care, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Anti-Muslim prejudice is hurting America at home and abroad: at home because it divides Americans from each other and hurts our Muslim citizens, and abroad because it signals to many of the world’s billion Muslims that America is their enemy. Sometimes it leads directly to anti-American savagery, like last week’s murders in Afghanistan over the burning of the Quran by a deranged Christian pastor.
Ethics Bob 