Author: southwerk

I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.

The Unifying Concept between the Three Great British Classics, Quatermass, Doctor Who, and Sherlock

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment
A British creation that depends on intelligence and rational judgment rather than action.
The Doctor quite often simply uses his intelligence and experience to solve problems.
A truly massive intelligence.

A few nights ago I was watching “Sherlock” for the fourth or fifth time. In this watching I am in now in the 4th season. I realized many similarities to Doctor Who and then I realized that it was also related to Quatermass.

I realize that while many Americans (my most common readers) have a passing knowledge of Doctor Who and Sherlock, Quatermass may be too far in the past for my readers. So, let me explain.

If you watch American science fiction from the 1950’s you get spaceships, bug eyed monsters, ray guns, a militarized exploration of space and considerable amounts of fighting. British science fiction in many ways rises from the Quatermass films both from live television and the cinema. To quote wikipedia:

Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist originally created by writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the British Experimental Rocket Group. He continually finds himself confronting sinister alien forces that threaten to destroy humanity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Quatermass

YouTube has several of the original British programs some them apparently filmed live. And of course, you can see the movies, a number of which star the American Brian Donlevy. I heartily recommend them. A good start would be film. “The Quatermass Xperiment.”

That said, what common themes link all three of these very successful and very long running heroes? Each series deals with extraordinary problems, far more serious and often outside the realms of our real life experiences and even probability. Quatermass struggles against alien plots and obstructive government officials, Sherlock struggles against highly intelligent often diabolical criminal masterminds, and Doctor Who while primarily concerned with alien dangers faces a somewhat larger variety of opponents. All of the heroes have incredible skills and useful experience. Each has extensively prepared for these struggles.

Yes, but what is the unifying concept that makes all these not only similar but successful? It is the belief that applied intelligence and moral force can change what happens. Each one very often seems to be a minor player in a world gone made, a world in which the powers of government and law enforcement seem helpless, in which the smallest hope seems ridiculous. And yet, they still win. One of the reasons they are compelling entertainment is enormous odds arrayed against our heroes and the moral power and confidence of their stand against those odds.

The world that we live in often makes us feel helpless and useless. Maslow’s “the Jonah Complex” is very much in play these days as we confront an online world which empowers every totalitarian impulse, internet loon and international grifter. These three epics of heroism and meaning work to give us hope, examples of words and intelligence making a difference, changing an apparently pre-destined unfair and destructive outcome to a positive one.

Each of the three carries several of the same messages, that struggling for what is right is important and worthwhile. That good can and does often triumph. And finally, human intelligence, will and courage make a difference all the time every day in every way.

Certainly, art expressed in the form of television and movie entertainment carries moral responsibility. You do unfortunately see nihilism and other negative moral themes in some of this but currently this is still a minority. All three have serious faults, in particular, Doctor Who, which I believe peaked with Matt Smith and has been in decline ever since. But in spite of their faults their messages of moral struggle is a good one and worthy of an artistic endeavor even one devoted to mere entertainment.

James Alan Pilant

My Business Ethics Topics!

On By southwerkIn business ethics
How I Choose Topics to Write About!

How I Choose Topics to Write About!

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_education_movement

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/5/russias-war-on-ukraine-forces-europe-to-weaponise-its-economic-might

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/05/letitia-james-jbs-meat-lawsuit-greenwashing

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/04/schools-close-and-crops-wither-as-historic-heatwave-hits-south-east-asia

About twenty years ago, I had an appointment to see a colleague at the college where I taught. She was in a meeting with a student who was having a bit of a crisis and I didn’t have a problem waiting knowing my friend’s superlative skills in counseling would provide some closure and help to the student but that it would take a while. There was a pile of old (most of them more than ten years old) Newsweek and Time magazines. So, I decided to look at the Business Ethics stories in those magazine. I was teaching the subject at the time and I though a historical view might be interesting.

The magazines had no stories of business ethics failures. The only references I could find was oblique ones when talking about a famous person’s past or that list of short paragraphs of what was in current new that they sometimes featured. I thought about this hard for a long time and realized the truth. It would have been damaging to the magazine profitability to disclose or even reference the scale and illegality of corporate wrong doing. The fact is business ethics was not an issue in terms of reporting for many in the media for many decades and that is still true of much media today.

Each day I search through major media outlets and good number of minor ones looking for subjects to write about. I’ve listed four pretty typical story ideas up with links listed at the top of this essay.

I want you to understand my thought processes and attempts at finding compelling topics to write about. The first one is a subject dear to my heart. I was fourteen years old and looking through books in the Pryor Public Library in Northeastern Oklahoma — and I found Mortimer J. Adler’s “How to Read a Book.” I devoured it. According to my school testing my reading level was “college, two years” and I knew I was pretty good but this book taught me how far I had to go. So, I learned to read the whole in terms of the parts and the parts in terms of the whole.

But what was more important was the list at the end of the book. There was a list of the great books of the Western world. It has been many years and in that time I have read about a third of them. I believe that one of the best ways to learn the best behavior and concepts of morality is the study of those books. So, a good topic to write about – something I have familiarity with.

The second topic about is about changes in Europe. All of our NATO allies are in the midst of movement in terms of policy toward the aggression of the Russians and the inability of the United States to find unity or purpose. Allowing the freedom fighters of the Ukraine to die for the political advantage of Donald Trump and the Republican party is a stain on our nation that will not be erased for quite some time.

I try not to write about international affairs or the horrible coming election very much. They are not really business ethics issues unless you stretch the concept quite a bit. But they do present moral and ethical questions many of them critical issues of life and death.

In Christianity as expressed in the New Testament, Jesus remarks that if you are ashamed of him and his words, he will be ashamed of you in the next world. I believe that. But it seems to me to be just the same when it comes to morality, ethics and doing what is right. If you fall silent in the face of evil and crime, why should God take notice of you in the next life? I have a duty to call out the criminal, to call out the wrong doer and to demand justice. So, you’ll seen the occasional foreign affairs and political piece in my writings. It is a duty to my morality.

The third topic is New York State is suing a major meat producer for “green washing,” pretending that you are protecting the environment verbally and in advertisements while in fact doing little or nothing. This is where the vast majority of business ethics textbook writers feel very much at home. This is a traditional business ethics issue and becoming more and more a legal issue. But this kind of corporate misconduct however serious in the long term is legalistic, complex and requires just oodles of explanatory text. I don’t mind writing it but it seems to me that readers run away from complexity unless you pretty up with stories of the dead and the dying and maybe some pictures. I’ll probably give this topic a miss.

The fourth topic is about climate change. The danger of our looming climate crisis is a real loser online. People do not want to read about it. That is what my analytics show on this particular topic. I agree it is depressing. But there are people out that who want to pretend it is not happening and if they prevail, millions will die, many more millions will be displaced and every part of the world will be effected and effected badly. The subject demands attention based on morality and ethics. My public may find this discouraging. It still needs to be discussed. Here’s a quote from the article:

A “historic heatwave” is being experienced across south-east Asia, according to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian. In updates posted on X, he said heat that was unprecedented for early April had been recorded at monitoring stations across the region this week, including in Minbu, in central Myanmar, where 44C was recorded – the first time in south-east Asia’s climatic history that such high temperatures had been reached so early in the month. In Hat Yai, in Thailand’s far south, 40.2 C was reached, an all-time record, while Yên Châu in north-west Vietnam hit 40.6C, unprecedented for this time of year.

A temperature of 44C is 111 degrees Fahrenheit. I think I should talk about this.

This is how I work through topics. I am trying to make a difference, to find meaning and significance with my writing. Let us cooperate in this joint endeavor, I the writer and you, the reader and observer of this written attempt at moral processing.

James Alan Pilant

The Tragedy in Gaza

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Who Are You Going to Believe about the Aid Workers Killed in Gaza??

Who Are You Going to Believe about the Aid Workers Killed in Gaza??

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

https://www.yahoo.com/news/early-war-idf-gave-clearance-025500680.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jos-andr-condemns-israel-killing-211711516.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/protests-expected-arizona-capitol-israeli-161916341.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world-central-kitchen-aid-workers-235043732.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-pay-compensation-dead-aid-161339785.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-reportedly-used-lavender-ai-005212158.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/stephen-colbert-spotlights-world-central-082543158.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/absurd-israel-rejects-claims-targeted-023707328.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/parents-of-quebecer-killed-in-gaza-say-israeli-strike-was-targeted-killing-of-aid-workers-225908562.html

If you believe in morality and ethics, you have a duty to speak out particularly when there is an particularly offensive tragedy that has taken place.

Seven aid workers were killed by a precision drone strike. Israel is responsible for these deaths.

Let me begin by naming the seven dead aid workers: (I’m going to use a quote since I don’t want to get any names wrong.)

The victims have been identified as Poland’s Damian Soból, Australia’s Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, Gaza’s Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha and American-Canadian dual citizen Jacob Flickinger, as well as the United Kingdom’s John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby.

These seven people are heroes, in my judgment, the best of us. They died attempt to feed and help other human beings. Their lives are a testament to the good that can be achieved by high moral values and the rare qualities of courage and sacrifice. God love every one of these wonderful people now lost to all of us.

Israel calls claims that the attack was targeted, “Absurd.” Yet, the food convoy had just dropped off food in a designated safe travel zone with the full knowledge of the Israeli military in clearly marked vehicles which were hit individually although they were hundreds of yards apart. Looking at the pictures of the destroyed cars I was shocked at the almost perfect precision of the hits.

I am having real trouble believing that Israel did not kill these people to deprive the Palestinians of food and to drive foreign observers out of the region so they can kill and commit crimes at will.

But there’s more. It is reported that the Israeli military established a ratio for acceptable collateral damage, that is, the killing of civilians. For a low level Hamas official it was okay to up to 20 civilians, for a high ranking as many as a hundred.

Israel has long been a United States ally. Sometimes I get the impression that they are shocked that we in the United States would question what they have done. But at this point in history, not counting the seven aid workers blown into pieces, 33,000 Palestinians have died in the current conflict and more than a million are starving. It is time to start asking questions and making demands. They depend on American money. That money should no longer be free of conditions. Why? Because the blood of the innocent is calling out to us and we have a duty as human beings to respond with justice.

Is Israel willing to make changes? I doubt it. There is this from the great state of Arizona:

An Israeli diplomat praised Arizona lawmakers for their support and condemned the international community’s lack of outrage at the harm Israel has suffered from the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. In a speech punctuated by three standing ovations, Israel Bachar, the country’s counsel general for the Pacific Southwest, refuted reports of starvation in Gaza and rebuffed calls for a ceasefire unless Hamas meets certain conditions.

It is pretty obvious to me that they feel with their allies in the media, politics and of course, American Evangelicals, they can just bluff their way through this. They can’t. There is too much blood.

We in the United States cannot escape blame. We give Israel about three billion a year and our total aid comes to about 260 billion dollars over the long term. Last year in response to the Hamas attacks, they received a 14.5 billion dollar military aid package. This emboldened that nation and every time someone dies at the hands of Israel, it is more than a little likely that U.S. dollars paid for the bullet.

Now, I am sure that some will do the “what about” argument so popular on the internet and on Fox News. So, here it is.

What about the crimes of Hamas? Aren’t you being naïve and serving their purposes by calling out Israel for their supposed crimes?

Hamas has murdered and kidnapped. They are currently holding hostages. They should be brought to justice. I am not on their “side.” We have a responsibility and a duty to humanity to do what is right. And what is right is avoiding indiscriminate killing, collateral damage and at the very, very least missile strikes on food convoys. And that is true whether “we” did it, our friends did it or our enemies did it.

You don’t do what is right because it is convenient. You do it because it is the right thing to do. We have duties in this life. If there is anything that I am completely sure of, it is that those seven dead aid workers deserve more a passing mention in a news feed. Something must be done about this.

James Alan Pilant

Current Business Ethics Issues 4/3/2024

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/03/all-billionaires-under-30-have-inherited-their-wealth-research-finds

California introduces ‘right to disconnect’ bill that would allow employees to possibly relax (msn.com)

I want to write today about three business ethics topics. The first one is a Guardian article that says “all billionaires under thirty have inherited their wealth.” I find this very concerning. Large concentrations of inherited wealth have unfortunate effects in democratic societies, even a limited democracy like the United States.

The article goes on to describe the incredible amount of inherited wealth we’re talking about as one generation give way to another, 5.2 Trillion dollars. These are world-wide numbers, of course. It would not be much of a stretch to suggests that the monarchies that dominated global politics in the 19th century are being replicated today in this dragon’s horde of incredible wealth and power. It does not bode well for the health, safety and financial security of the great mass of the population.

I have written about this often. In the United States, loony billionaires have gained more and more political power as their dark money dominates political advertising in state after state. It certainly give the impression of living in an oligarchy of inherited and incompetent wealth and power.

I will continue to cover our deteriorating governing system in later writing.

California is considering a law mandating rules that allow workers “the right to disconnect,” that is, not to be available by phone or computer twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to their employers. The horrifying and tragic effects of our always online culture include – never being able to not be at work. Literally, many jobs follow you everywhere and demand that you be available. I don’t think I need to tell you that people need sleep, family time, vacations and simply time to regenerate their interest in life – and yet we allow businesses to place out size and fairly irrational burdens on workers.

There needs to be compensation for making people constantly accessible at home and their absolutely needs to be rules about how much of an employees life is accessible to the moment by moment needs of a business. Apparently there is some awareness of this and I am pleased that the world is seemingly moving in a positive direction.

And now in the world of business ethics, the massive dead pus filled corpse of the elephant in the room, Boeing.

I found the troubled company, Boeing’s mission statement. I must confess I was amused. Let me quote:

“To connect, protect, explore, and inspire the world through aerospace innovation.”

I have been reading about Boeing for weeks now and none of it was “nice.” Let me suggest an alternative mission statement in my own satirical way:

“To squeeze as much money as possible out of our suppliers, the airlines and the government while evading regulations, taxes and responsibility in a determined pursuit of short term profits and year-end bonuses.”

Now, you might say, “James, that is not very nice. Do you think you might go easier on the company??”

And the answer is NO. I got radicalized when the two Boeing aircraft self-crashed. This company literally built planes that flew themselves into the ground. When the blood of the innocent cries out for justice, I try and listen. I am not a friend of the company and proud not to be a friend of the company.

The worst thing about this situation is the simple fact that there is no path to redemption. You can’t take a company, strip away its engineering excellence and reputation and then go out and find people to put that genie back in the bottle. The company is dead centered on maximizing profit at all costs. It is just like diving a plane into the ground. There is no coming back from that.

I would suggest that in the interest of national security, the government of the United States provide financials incentives to tune of many billions of dollars to create two or three producers of civilian aircraft so that we have that capability in the United States. It is absolutely vital to our nation’s commercial success and national security that we have this capability. The only thing I see at Boeing is a slow and eventual corporate demise.

And a well deserved one at that.

Let me close with one of my standard gripes. There seems to be no agreement at all about what responsibilities a company has in regard to ethics or to the nation and people where they exist. The Milton Friedman school of nuttiness assumes that if you play by “the rules of the game,” your only purpose should be maximized shareholder value and this appears to be the common current “standard,” that is, if you can call a complete and total renunciation of duty, honor and religion, a standard.

Every company and every individual has a duty to obey the law, bear the common burden of taxes, as well as the duties of a common patriot, of neighbors and participant in the democratic process. We are more that atoms flying about in a free economic system. We have the ability to live not as vicious advantage seeking profit grubbing monsters but as ladies and gentlemen.

Let us aspire to higher values and reject cheap appeals to greed, gluttony and selfishness.

Boeing Mission Statement | Vision | Values | Strategy (2024 Analysis)

Even in the 21st Century, Facts are Facts

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cleveland-plain-dealer-donald-trump-editor-chris-quinn_n_660bce73e4b0328a72bde2a8

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/major-market-newspaper-editor-publishes-stunning-rebuke-of-trump-the-north-star-here-is-truth/ar-BB1kTGWg

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/this-is-the-key-to-covering-trump/ar-BB1kTNci

The editor of “The Plain Dealer” a newspaper in Cleveland announced in an editorial that “The North Star is Truth.” He was responding to criticism of the paper’s critical coverage of Donald Trump. This is a poetic way of alluding to the North Star’s guidance in navigation to true north, in this case, accuracy and an adherence to facts not favor. Let’s have a look at a larger quote from the editorial:

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

It is very edifying to hear someone dedicated to truth and facts with an apparent revulsion to lies and stupidity. Social media and a great deal of the alternative media such as hate radio are conduits for lies, conspiracy theories and propaganda. Wading in the middle of this cesspool is every two bit grifter, crook and washed up former politician. It gives decent people nausea.

There are people that believe that when this election is over and (God willing) Donald Trump is defeated that things will return to normal. I think not. Trump’s methods, the constant personal attacks, the vicious name calling and the use of winged monkeys, that is, his more demented followers, to threaten and intimidate, are not going away. Why not? Because they work! They drive decent people out of politics, intimidate the media, and allow the foolish, the intemperate and terminally stupid to succeed in politics. And I promise you, the pitiful losers in America want badly to punish their imagined enemies and to proclaim their importance at any cost whatever.

Civil society is created by good and intelligent people who live as ladies and gentlemen. Currently it is battered almost beyond recognition but it is not dead and it worth taking a second look at and rebuilding.

And the solid bedrock up which we build a great and powerful society is just what the editor said: “Our North Star is truth.”

Just the Same as having a Smoker in the Home

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Gas Stoves: The Fracking Tailpipe in Your Kitchen — The Science and Environmental Health Network (sehn.org)

Population Attributable Fraction of Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma in the United States – PMC (nih.gov)

https://www.consumerreports.org/appliances/indoor-air-quality/is-your-gas-range-a-health-risk-a6971504915

My title is based on a comparison, that is, having a gas cooking stove in your home carries the same level of asthma risk to children as having someone who smokes in the home. (My sources are listed above.)

When I started researching this topic I expected to find out that over long periods of time gas stove usage produced an uptick in childhood asthma. What I found that according to research published last year, 12.7 percent of all childhood asthma is attributable to gas stoves. That’s 647,700 children. That is much more than an uptick. Just in case, that didn’t alarm me enough, I discovered that gas stoves leak gas all the time and they have an effect on air pollution and global warming.

However and as usual, the culture wars that have made much of public discourse a subhuman cesspool, have taken hold.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/13/house-passes-bill-block-gas-stove-ban-00100492

“We know the motivation of the CPSC and throughout this entire administration is a green climate push,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), the sponsor of the legislation, said. “The goal is to dictate how you live every aspect of your life — how you save and invest for the future by pushing ESG, how you drive by banning gas-powered cars, and now the goal is to control how you cook.”

The federal government at the time wasn’t considering a ban but that didn’t stop them from preventive strike on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. Yes, so you see saving our children and ourselves from indoor pollution caused by a product about which we were told over and over again was safe is all some kind of “woke” political plot to steal freedom.

The research is pretty clear. We need to develop rules on indoor pollution (there aren’t any now) and based on the data in front of me, it seems likely gas stove aren’t going to pass muster. It’s not woke to try to prevent childhood asthma. It’s not work to cut down on pollution and it’s absolutely, positively not woke to call out an industry that told us this product was safe.

You would think that children might find the occasional advocate in the United States Congress. You might think that hearing a child wheezing for a breath of air would be influential in the great hearing rooms of our capital. And you would be wrong. We not only subsidize the fossil fuels industry billions of dollars a year, we have to pretend they are our benefactors and using their products is an example of our “freedom.”

James Pilant

The Race for the Bottom

On By southwerkIn business ethics

More and more as time goes by, it seems evident that there is a competition among a certain class of politician to say something memorable even thought it is profoundly stupid. Maybe, it is the need for clickbait, something to wake up your supporters so they will click, read and maybe even cough up so dough?

The latest example: https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-gop-congressman-suggests-using-015528159.html

Tim Walberg, a Republican Representative from Michigan, suggests with all seriousness that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza “should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” Asked to comment, he suggested that he was merely referring to the need to get this conflict with quickly. I think I will do him the honor of respecting his words and seeing the clear implication of his desire to see massive casualties. Armchair warriors at safe distances from conflicts are often quite savage in their opinions.

And I understand that if he had said “There is a bitter war going on in Israel. We should pray for a quick end to the conflict and hope and work toward justice for both sides,” he probably wouldn’t have made the news cycle. Not that there is any real danger of him saying something like that. You see when asked about our food aid to the suffering Palestinians, he said this, “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid.”

Being a fierce verbal warrior in a town hall in Dundee Village in Michigan gives one a certain distance from bomb craters and corpses. It is easy to be complacent and cruel with other people’s lives. And he is both. Nuclear weapons are a last resort and a very cruel and not a very targeted killer. It kills the earthworms, the grass as well as vaporizing, cauterizing and fragmenting human beings.

I maintain that eloquence should return to American discourse and the bombastic lunacy of verbal violence on those we dislike discarded. We should be trying to end the conflict and save as many people as possible. That is what decent ladies and gentlemen do.

Let’s do decency even if it doesn’t draw the much attention to us.

Sally Field and a Failure of a Gentleman’s Duty

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/entertainment/sally-field-burt-reynolds-oscars/index.html

In a recent interview, Sally Field revealed that Burt Reynolds refused to go with her to the Oscars. Apparently upset at all the attention she was getting, Reynolds who later claimed in his biography that Fields was the love of his life simply failed in performing the duty of a gentleman.

A gentleman in a relationship honors his partner’s accomplishment. The circumstance that her accomplishments may be eclipsing his own is completely, totally irrelevant. Maybe he should have watched a couple of the “A Star is Born” movies to get him in the proper frame of mind.

But Sally was rescued. David Steinberg and his wife stepped in to accompany her to the event even getting a limousine and champagne. Now, that is the act of a gentleman and a lady. It is what good breeding and intelligence expects.

Why is this important? A lot of what we see in the media is the popularization of the refusal to observe social morays and the duties of citizenship and our obligations to our fellow Americans.

Now, before you jump on me for supporting the often stultifying demands of small town life, know you that I have been in revolt from these all my life. I’m not talking about the mundane pain of the old biddies that seem to dictate much local culture, I’m talking about real duties, like paying attention to reputable news while avoiding conspiracy breeding nonsense. Diving into a cult of belief, joining the flat earth society or engaging in the hideous behavior of making abusive phone calls and sending vile e-mails to political opponents are all massive failure of the duties of ladies and gentlemen.

A great society is inhabited by a spirit of nobility, not by birth which is simple nonsense. (Observe Prince Andrew.) Real nobility, the kind achieved by action, experience and training is something that the best among us have strived to achieve for generations. It is a club that we can all join and we should aspire to.

James Alan Pilant

The picture above is from Wikipedia which I borrow with sincere thanks – and provide the attribution they recommend.

Robert Vaughan (circa 1600 – 1660) – National Portrait Gallery – https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw133194/Richard-Brathwaite