May 27, 2010
First the good news: The New York Times reports that a Manhattan community board voted 29-1, with ten abstentions, to approve a proposed Muslin community center two blocks from Ground Zero. The board’s vote is advisory, but the Times notes that the vote is a measure of community sentiment. Score one for New Yorkers and one for tolerance.
And the bad news: A Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut voters showed only 33 percent were less likely to vote for Richard Blumenthal after he lied about serving as a Marine in Vietnam. Sixty-one percent said it doesn’t make a difference. And some indecipherable four percent said they were more likely to vote for him because of his lie. Sadly, 54 percent bought Blumenthal’s claim that he merely misspoke about his military service, while only 38 percent said he lied. Thumbs down for Connecticut.
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Tags: Blumenthal, Connecticut, Connecticut voters, Connecticuters., Ground Zero, lies, Manhattan community board, Marines, military service, misspoke, Muslim community center, Muslims, New York City, New Yorkers, Quinnipiac poll, The New York Times., tolerance, Vietnam
Posted in Ethics-general, military, Politics, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
May 26, 2010
My favorite TV program is MSNBC’s Morning Joe. The hosts are conservative ex-Congressman Joe Scarborough, liberal television journalist Mika Brzezinski, and humorist/sports fan Willie Geist. While their politics are very different, they are intelligent and good natured as they talk about the world. They have interesting and nice guests—the kind of people you’d enjoy having over for dinner.
So I was disappointed Wednesday morning when, after Mika introduced a report by NBC reporter George Lewis on the threat to public health posed by super-sized restaurant meals, Joe and Willie and guest Mike Barnicle started clowning and joking about how great it was to eat huge meals at the restaurants identified by the Center for Science in the Public Interest as contributing to America’s epidemic of obesity.
CSPI cited P. F. Chang’s double pan fried noodle combo (1820 calories), California Pizza Kitchen’s tostada pizza with grilled steak (1680 calories), and the king of the gorge plates, Cheesecake Factory’s pasta carbonara with chicken, weighing in at 2500 calories and 85 grams of saturated fat. That’s 250 more calories than the Mayo Clinic recommends for an average fairly active man in an entire day. Clearly such meals consumed regularly are deadly. No joke. Not funny, Joe. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Amos and Andy, California Pizza Kitchen, calories, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Cheesecake Factory, comedians, double pan fried noodle combo, drunk routines, drunkenness, epidemic, George Lewis, Joe Scarborough, Mayo Clinic, Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle, Morning Joe, MSNBC, obesity, P. F. Chang, pasta carbonara with chicken, public health, restaurant meals, saturated fat, television, tostada pizza with grilled steak, Willie Geist
Posted in Business ethics, Education, Entertainment, Ethics-general | 4 Comments »
May 25, 2010
What a joy it was to watch USC football. The lightning-speed acrobatics of Reggie Bush. The instinctive pursuit of Brian Cushing. The hard hitting of Kevin Ellison. The exuberance of Pete Carroll. The elusiveness of Joe McKnight. So maybe the basketball program was corrupt, what with the underhanded payments to O. J. Mayo, the sneaking out of town by coach Tim Floyd, and the forfeiting of an entire season. Not good, but Trojan football! There was something to believe in.
Yes, there was the repeated taunting, showing off, and poor sportsmanship . There was the rub it in last minute touchdown pass en route to a pasting of UCLA. There was the suspicious ownership of a new car driven by Joe McKnight. But we never believed the charges of illegal payments to Reggie Bush’s parents, charges made by unsavory characters against All-American Reggie.
Now we’re rethinking the Bush situation, now that Brian Cushing, star linebacker for the Trojans before becoming the NFL defensive rookie of the year, was suspended for 2010’s first four games for using banned “performance-enhancing substances.” And now that former Trojan safety Kevin Ellison has been pulled over for speeding in a school zone, then arrested for possession of 100 Vicodin tablets. With so much wrongdoing involving Trojan footballers, why not believe Saint Reggie was corrupt too. Especially with USC’s Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Brian Cushing, Cheaters, defensive rookie of the year, illegal payments, Joe McKnight, Kevin Ellison, NFL, O. J. Mayo, performance-enhancing substances. Vicodin, Pete Carroll, poor sportsmanship, Reggie Bush, Tim Floyd, Trojans, UCLA, USC football
Posted in Education, Ethics-general, Sports | 16 Comments »
May 23, 2010
Connecticut Democrats took a stand Friday: they nominated Attorney General Richard Blumenthal by voice vote as their candidate for the U. S. Senate. Lying about having served in Vietnam. No problem.
Is Blumenthal sorry? Not on your life. Instead of apologizing he said, “I may have misspoken—I did misspeak on a few occasions out of hundreds, and I will not allow anyone to take a few of those misplaced words and impugn my record of service.”
Misspoken? Misspeaking is calling one grandchild by another grandchild’s name. Misspeaking is saying 2009 when you mean 2010. Misspeaking is NOT saying he served in Vietnam when he didn’t, or saying “When we came back, we were spat on; we couldn’t wear our uniforms.” Those are lies.
Not a big problem for his party, however. From White House spokesman Robert Gibbs:
“I have not heard anything from the (White House) political shop that would lead me to believe anything other than our continued support.” Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut, Democratic National Committee, Democrats, Linda McMahon, lying, misspeak, misspoken, Robert Gibbs, Robert Menendez, Robert Zimmerman, Senate, Vietnam, White House, World Wrestling Entertainment
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics | 11 Comments »
May 18, 2010
The Democrats had the Connecticut Senate seat sewed up, the one being vacated by Chris Dodd. Nate Silver’s authoritative website, http://fivethirtyeight.com, rated the seat at greater than 95 percent likely to remain Democratic. Until this morning’s New York Times ran a front-page piece headlined, “Candidate’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History.”
And how!
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Democratic candidate, has been running 13-25 points ahead of possible Republican opponents. But he’s been claiming that he served in Vietnam, and that, “When we came back, we were spat on; we couldn’t wear our uniforms.” But Blumenthal never served in Vietnam. He got five deferments from the draft, and when they ran out he did the only thing that would save him from having to go to Vietnam: he joined the Marine Corps Reserve, where his most intense action was the Christmas time Toys for Tots” program. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Bill Curry, Chris Dodd, Connecticut, Connecticut Attorney General, deferments, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democrats, Eric Schultz, ethics, fivethirtyeight.com, Harvard swim team, Linda McMahon, lying, Marine Corps Reserve, McMahon campaign, misspeak, Nate Silver, New York Times, Richard Blumenthal, Senate, Toys for Tots, veracity, Vietnam, WWE
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics | 8 Comments »
May 17, 2010
Lena Horne died last week at 92. I only knew of two prominent African-Americans when I was growing up in segregated Wilmington, Delaware. One was heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, and the other was singer Lena Horne. I knew she was a good singer, and quite beautiful, but I didn’t know anything else. I’m indebted to Jack Marshall’s EthicsAlarms.com blog for educating me about her groundbreaking role in the civil rights movement.
Marshall called Horne “Ethics Hero Emeritus” for her relentless fight against segregation and her principled refusal to play demeaning roles in the racist Hollywood environment of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Her career suffered, and she finally left Hollywood for Europe, where people didn’t seem to care much about her skin color.
There’s a fascinating PBS Fresh Air program, broadcast on May 14, that replays an interview that host Terry Gross conducted with Horne’s daughter, Gail Lumet Horne, in 1986. Listen to it for an inspiring story of this heroic woman.
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Tags: African Americans, civil rights, Ethics Hero, EthicsAlarms, Fresh Air, Gail Lumet Horne, Hollywood, Jack Marshall, Joe Louis, Lena Horne, segregation¸ Wilmington Delaware, Terry Gross
Posted in Business ethics, Entertainment, Ethics-general, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
May 15, 2010
I’ve written here about how I recently left a wallet with all my credit cards and $300 in cash in an Istanbul Starbucks, and how the finder tracked me down and returned it intact. I had a similar experience in Turkey several years before. Good thing I didn’t do that in Silicon Valley, where Apple engineer Gray Powell left a priceless prototype of Apple’s next edition of the iPhone in a Redwood City bar. Brian Hogan, a 21-year-old college student, found the phone and shopped it around, finally selling it to technology blog Gizmodo for $5,000.
Hogan’s roommate, Katherine Martinson, said she and other friends tried to talk Hogan out of selling the phone, arguing it would ruin the career of the Apple engineer who lost it. Hogan responded,
“Sucks for him. He lost his phone. Shouldn’t have lost his phone.”
He sure shouldn’t have lost it where Brian Hogan could find it, steal it, and sell it. He should have lost it in Istanbul where it would have been quickly returned to him.
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Tags: Apple, Brian Hogan, ethics, Gizmodo, Gray Powell, iPhone, Istanbul, Katherine Martinson, lost wallet, Redwood City, Silicon Valley, Starbucks, Turkey
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, International | 2 Comments »
May 14, 2010
“What’s the right thing to do here?”
That’s the very first line of the autobiography of billionaire Meg Whitman, candidate for the Republican nomination for California governor. She paints herself as the ethical candidate: “No playing things loose or close to the edge. We were going to do things the right way.” That’s an unnamed eBay executive talking in a campaign ad about working for Whitman back then. When Forbes Magazine did a 2007 cover story on Whitman they enthused, “Ebay’s Meg Whitman built a retail leviathan without sacrificing her customers, shareholders or ethics.”
But politicians claiming they’re particularly ethical are like gangsters shouting, “Come and get me, copper.” The press, like the cops, usually accepts the challenge, a la John Edwards, Gary Hart, Eliot Spitzer, and others.
If you watch television in California you already know about Whitman’s ethics, displayed in $60 million worth of the skuzziest campaign ads imaginable. But her hyper-negative campaign against fellow Republican Steve Poizner isn’t the most interesting thing about Whitman’s campaign.
Try googling “Meg Whitman ethics.” It turns up 48,800 entries. There are the articles about her sweetheart deal with Goldman Sachs, in which she moved the banking business of eBay, which she headed, to Goldman Sachs in return for the inside track on an initial public stock offering (IPO) in which she made a quick $1.78 million. When eBay shareholders sued she agreed to give her ill-gotten gains Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: California governor, campaign ads, Craigslist.com, eBay, Eliot Spitzer, ethics, Forbes Magazine, Gary Hart, Goldman Sachs, Hurricane Katrina, IPO, John Edwards, Los Angeles Times, Meg Whitman, Republican nomination, Steve Poizner
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, Politics | 3 Comments »
May 12, 2010
Some Americans are up in arms over the prospect of a big new synagogue in the old Burlington Coat Factory site near Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed on 9/11. There’s even a Facebook page called “1,000,000+ people who disapprove of building a synagogue at Ground Zero!” It has 20,389 members, up from about 7,000 two days ago. The word is spreading virally on the internet, and people are thronging to the site to sign up.
The site’s self-description reads,
Jews want to put a SYNAGOGUE WITHIN 600 FEET “GROUND ZERO”! This page’s opinion is this synagogue is a symbol of conquering America; they could have put it somewhere else away from Ground Zero – hallowed ground – but they chose this spot for a reason.
Join us, and show America – and the Jewish world – that is an insult, and cannot stand!
This groups is NOT about attacking Judaism or Jews; it’s about the appropriateness of putting such a building in that location. Also, Obama has nothing to do with it; if you want to blame someone, blame Mayor Bloomberg – he approved of it.
The man leading the effort to build the synagogue is Rabbi Frank Rubenstein, who explained to The New York Times, “We want the world to know we condemn 9/11. In my congregation are many people who died on 9/11.” The Times described the rabbi as following a path of Judaism focused more on spiritual wisdom Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: "1, 000, 000+ people who disapprove of building a mosque at Ground Zero!", 9/11, American Muslims, anti-Semitism, Burlington Coat Factory, Christian Science Monitor, Facebook, Ground Zero, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, mosque, Muslims, New York Times, What’s Right with Islam, World Trade Center
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Tolerance | 6 Comments »
May 11, 2010
There’s something about bureaucracy that violates my sense of ethics. Bureaucracy represses one’s humanity. Humans want to make a difference in their lives, but bureaucracy forces conformity and sameness. One definition in the American Heritage Dictionary is “an administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action.”
The bureaucratic system is founded on rules, supervision and enforcement by specialists and inspectors to make sure workers follow the rules, even when the rules deviate from common sense.
We need to move beyond it, but moving beyond it means shifting to a different form of control, one based on a strong sense of mission and a culture of trust, with authority and responsibility shifted from the few at the top to the many front-line workers.
This shift also requires that the organization have a strong ethical grounding. Ethics must replace the missing rules, but in many organizations what passes for ethics is merely another set of rules to comply with, and ethics training usually consists of badgering workers about bribery, conflict of interest and favoritism.
Enron had a nice 65-page code of ethics. The International City/County Management Association has a pretty good code of ethics except that it’s 2000 words long, has a 3200-word supplementary “Rules of Procedure for Enforcement,” and is written by lawyers or at least by people who have mastered esoteric, lawyerly writing. Most people can’t live by the ICMA code because they simply can’t remember any of it. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: authority and responsibility, Bureaucracy, code of ethics, common sense, conflict of interest, corruption, Enron, ethics, fraud, Governing.com), International City/County Management Association, sense of mission, trust, truth to power, wallet-sized card, waste
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, Organizational, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Ethics Bob 