David Yamada Talks about Human Dignity

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice
David Yamada
David Yamada

David Yamada Talks about Human Dignity

I like to think of David Yamada as a business ethics authority. He comes at the workplace from a different angle but still his subject is business ethics.

He continually asks the questions: What is happening in the workplace. Is it ethical? Can we do better?

I share his concerns.

I recommend his web site and admire the energy of his regular posting.

James Pilant

http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/making-human-dignity-the-centerpiece-of-american-employment-law-and-policy/

Making human dignity the centerpiece of American employment law and policy « Minding the Workplace

First, we must remain steadfast and unapologetic in calling for dignity in the workplace, even at the risk of being labeled foolish or naive. . . . In the face of likely criticism and even ridicule, we must make the case, without embarrassment, that workers should not have to check their dignity at the office or factory door.

Second, it is important to understand how we got to this place. The markets and management framework did not achieve dominance overnight or by accident. Its current, enduring incarnation has been the result of careful, patient, and intelligent intellectual spadework and political organizing. . . .

Third, just as the emergence of the markets and management framework was part of a broader political, social, and economic movement, the call for dignity at work cannot be made in a vacuum. . . . [D]enials of dignity occur throughout society, and therefore call for connected rather than atomized responses.

Finally, we must work on crafting messages that persuade the general public and stakeholders in employment relations. . . . [W]e need to translate these ideas into messages that reach people in legislatures, courts, administrative agencies, union halls, board rooms, and the media. This will not be easy, but at stake is nothing less than the well-being of millions of people who work for a living and those who depend on them.

via Making human dignity the centerpiece of American employment law and policy « Minding the Workplace.

From around the web.

From the web site, Workspace Practices.

http://cvakuffo.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/meet-professor-david-yamada-suffolk-university-law-school-professor-and-host-of-the-minding-the-workplace-blog-from-the-new-workplace-institute/

If you haven’t heard of David Yamada, professor at Suffolk University School of Law, chances are you will some time soon. In addition to his work as a legal professor, he is also the director of the New Workplace Institute, which has a WordPress blog of the same name. Through the institute Professor Yamada raises public and institutional awareness about workplace bullying.

The Workplace Bullying Institute defines bullying as repeated, health-harming mistreatment of the bully’s target. This mistreatment can include verbal abuse; offensive behavior, verbal or non-verbal, that is threatening, humiliating or intimidating; work sabotage which prevents work from being accomplished.

Bullying has particular resonance in Massachusetts, where in 2010 a high-profile case of teenage bullying led 15-year-old Phoebe Prince to commit suicide after sustained harassment by classmates at her high school with little if any intervention by school authorities.

While we know the perils of high school with its particular brand of tormentors, there is another kind — the bully who grew up and moved on from high school and is now a workplace bully. It is this kind of bully that Yamada’s work seeks to defang.

When he first started out, Yamada thought he wanted to practice public-interest law, although he wasn’t quite sure what that involved.  After receiving his JD from New York University School of Law he practiced at the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Legal Aid Society of New York City.

 

A Great Teaching Web Site!

On By southwerkIn Teaching

31A Great Teaching Web Site!

I came across this while cruising the web. Professor Steffens has the class turn in their work as comments on his topic. I read some of the student work and enjoyed it. I wanted to quote some for my posts but I wasn’t sure how Professor Steffens would feel about, you know, professional courtesy.

This is a great teaching method and it’s a fun read to see what the students can make of current journalism.

James Pilant

http://econ1051.wordpress.com/

Economics for the School of Journalism

Extra credit for spring 2013

Economic news is everywhere, and your job is to find it and relate it to our Hubbard and O’Brien text.

Find an article in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or USA Today. You can find these articles on line.  Summarize the article and relate it to our text. You can see what other students have done as a guide. We’re looking for four-five paragraph posts. Each post is 3 points, and you can do 4, for a total of 12 points!

All you have to do is find your article, write about it, with a link and make sure I know your pawprint!  I left a few from last semester to show you the way…To Post — just type your comments into the REPLY window at the end of the other posts…

Prof. Steffens

From around the web.

From the web site, Real-world Economics Review Blog.

http://rwer.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/teaching-economics-new-developments-in-economic-education/

In 2001 French economics students petitioned their professors for a more realistic and pluralist teaching of economics. Since then, several books have been written on how to teach pluralist economics, including John Groenewegen’s Teaching Pluralism in Economics (Edward Elgar, 2007); Edward Fullbrook’s Pluralist Economics (Zed, 2009) and Jack Reardon’s Handbook of Pluralist Economics Education (Routledge, 2009). A new journal exclusively devoted to discussing how to implement pluralism in the classroom – the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education – was founded by Jack Reardon. And several global organizations- the World Economic Association, the Association of Heterodox Economics, besides the International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics, for example – have emphasized the need for changes in economics curriculum.

Considering this background, this blog welcomes all the attempts that emphasize the need for further changes in teaching economics.

Pat Robertson Unpredictable!

On By southwerkIn Editorial2 Comments

Reading a newspaper i464Pat Robertson Unpredictable!

Sometimes, I can be surprised. Today is one of those days. I would never have thought to hear Pat Robertson say what he said about creationism and Ken Ham.

Read below and maybe you will share my surprise.

What’s the business ethics question here? A television network even one associated with a religion is still a business. What’s the issue? How about Pat Robertson saying what he considers to be true even though it will offend many of his viewers? I have to give him points on that one.

This is an extremely ethical act. He could have avoided the issue or said something moderately approving about defenders of the faith, and yet he did choose that path.

Now I have certainly disagreed with Robertson in the past and probably will in the future. But I grew up in the Fundamentalist Church, right wing Baptists (You might think that’s not possible but it is. Trust me.) they and many other evangelicals consider any questioning of Biblical literal truth as a form of heresy.

So, on this day I give credit and compliments to Pat Robertson for being willing to raise a difficult issue with his base of supporters.

James Pilant

Pat Robertson begs Ken Ham to shut up – Salon.com

Creationist Ken Ham is having his 15 minutes, following a live debate on evolution held between himself and Bill Nye “The Science Guy” on Tuesday.

And while you’d expect most folks to deem Nye the winner (which they have), Ham is receiving criticism from a source you might not expect: televangelist Pat Robertson.

On the Wednesday edition of his TV show, “The 700 Club,” Robertson indirectly implored Ham to put a sock in it, criticizing Ham’s view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

“Let’s face it, there was a bishop [James Ussher] … who added up the dates listed in Genesis and he came up with the world had been around for 6,000 years,” Robertson began. “There ain’t no way that’s possible … To say that it all came about in 6,000 years is just nonsense and I think it’s time we come off of that stuff and say this isn’t possible.”

“We’ve got to be realistic that the dating of Bishop Ussher just doesn’t comport with anything that’s found in science,” Robertson continued, “and you can’t just totally deny the geological formations that are out there.”

“Let’s be real,” Robertson begged, “let’s not make a joke of ourselves.”

via Pat Robertson begs Ken Ham to shut up – Salon.com.

From around the web.

Here’s an interesting link: http://youcallthatart.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/pat-robertson-disses-creationism-shocker/

It’s from the web site, You call that Art.

From the web site, WTVR.com.

http://wtvr.com/2012/11/30/pat-robertson-challenges-creationism-cites-dinosaurs/

Televangelist Pat Robertson challenged the idea that Earth is 6,000 years old this week, saying the man who many credit with conceiving the idea, former Archbishop of Ireland James Ussher, “wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he said that it all took 6,000 years.”

The statement was in response to a question Robertson fielded Tuesday from a viewer on his Christian Broadcasting Network show “The 700 Club.” In a submitted question, the viewer wrote that one of her biggest fears was that her children and husband would not go to heaven “because they question why the Bible could not explain the existence of dinosaurs.”

“You go back in time, you’ve got radiocarbon dating. You got all these things, and you’ve got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas,” Robertson said. “They’re out there. So, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth, and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don’t try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That’s not the Bible.”

Japan Arms Up

On By southwerkIn Editorial

Japan map CIA fact bookJapan Arms Up

It is obvious to the most casual observer that China’s actions in the South China Sea are fueling tensions in the region. Japan has been adding to its fleet, and I don’t doubt that we will see bigger warships and larger aircraft in the next few years.

Why is this in a business ethics web site?

That’s easy. American institutions like corporations and investment banks willingness to provide money and investment to a crass totalitarian government carries risks. China’s bellicose foreign policy demonstrates just how big that risk is. In the event of a showdown with the United States and its allies, what’s going to happen to hundreds of billions of dollars of investment?

We were told and continue to be told what a great place for investment, China is.

Yeah, just keep repeating that. But watch the news, and count how many carriers the Chinese now have (three).

James Pilant

Japan should reverse course on defense policy, panel says | Al Jazeera America

A government panel will urge Japan to allow its military to help allies that come under attack, a major reversal of the country’s ban on collective defense under its pacifist constitution. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants Japan to play a greater role in international peacekeeping and step up its defense posture, citing potential military threats from China and North Korea.

The panel on Tuesday discussed ways that Japan can improve its defense capability and said it will present its near-final draft recommendation in coming weeks, before its final report is expected sometime after April.

The 14-member panel, headed by former Ambassador to the U.S. Shunji Yanai, said the revision is possible if the government alters its current interpretation of the war-renouncing constitution. Formal constitutional change involves high hurdles, though Abe eventually hopes to achieve that as well.

The constitution, written under U.S. direction after World War II, says the Japanese people “forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation” and that “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” 

The government has interpreted those clauses as meaning that Japan cannot possess offensive military weapons such as ICBMs or long-range strategic bombers.

Abe and other supporters of the change believe that restrictions should be removed from the military, and that Japan’s current self-defense-only policy is inadequate as the region’s security environment becomes more challenging. 

via Japan should reverse course on defense policy, panel says | Al Jazeera America.

From around the web.

From the web site, Consortium of Defense Analysts.

http://cofda.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/aircraft-carrier-race-china-vs-japan-india/

Discreetly, the Japanese aren’t boasting much about the 19,500-ton Izumo, which should be ready for action in two years, but Japan’s success in producing such a vessel may diminish the Chinese challenge to Japanese control over the disputed Senkaku islands, Diaoyu to the Chinese. No one doubts that Japanese shipyards, after decades producing some of the biggest, most sophisticated commercial vessels, could turn out still more in the Izumo class – and go up in class to full-fledged aircraft carriers.

What in the Hell??? Is Self Pleasure the Same as War?

On By southwerkIn Editorial

006thWhat in the Hell??? Is Self Pleasure the Same as War? (It is in Idaho.)

(Please go down to the article I am talking about and read it first – it’s okay if you read and think it’s a parody from the Onion. Here is a link to the film that is being discussed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhxv-lcChGM. I don’t know if you should watch the film. I don’t think anybody anywhere should see this film but you have to make that choice for yourself. But in case you are wondering, the film literally compares masturbation to war.)

I have students in my class who are veterans. Some have been blown up by IED’s. I don’t doubt that all have been changed by their experiences.

This leads me to my next and what I consider an obvious point – Masturbation is not equivalent to war.

Furthermore, it seems to me that Brigham Young University’s Housing and Student Living Office has way too much money and way too much time on their hands, and a woeful lack of intelligent leadership.

Or I can I just simplify my criticism – they’re just weird. That’s with a capital W. And an exclamation point! – Weird!

I foolishly thought anti-masturbation was so nineteenth century. Apparently that century has a lot of fans in Idaho. It’s fortunate they don’t like the fifteenth, they could have an Inquisition. Of course, they could always combine the two and have an anti-masturbation Inquisition complete with chanting monks and a rack. But this is the 21st century, so they made an “educational” film.

And think about this, if masturbation is equivalent to war, what is sex equivalent to – Armageddon, perhaps the Apocalypse? If they make a film about actual sex, will the climax of the film be the practitioners literally exploding?

I guess we’ll have to wait for their next production. You want to know my guess for the next film: Reefer Madness II, the Reckoning.

James Pilant

BYU-Idaho Anti-Masturbation Video Compares Self-Pleasure To War

A PSA by Brigham Young University–Idaho’s Housing and Student Living Office compares masturbation to the battlefield and those who pleasure themselves to wounded soldiers. The takeaway seems to be something along the lines of “friends don’t let friends masturbate.”

The video begins with a young male who appears to be watching porn with his door open (as is the de facto way), but the spot then takes a decidedly strange turn.

“The young man is spiritually wounded on the battlefield of the Great War,” university President Kim B. Clark says in a voiceover before the scene transitions into a grim battlefield. “In our modern society, the enemy has spread fear of getting involved when someone’s in trouble and has fostered a social stigma against people who speak up in the face of evil.”

Clark finally puts out a call to action: “Don’t be silent. Don’t leave the wounded on the battlefield.”

via BYU-Idaho Anti-Masturbation Video Compares Self-Pleasure To War.

From around the web.

From the web site, Why Evolution is True.

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/bizarre-mormon-anti-masturbation-video-narrated-by-byu-president/comment-page-1/

We all know the Catholic strictures about masturbation, and how you can suffer eternally for unconfessed onanism. What I didn’t realize is that the Mormons also regard “self abuse,” depicted in the video below as an implied consequence of watching online pornography, as something with dire consequences.

This video, narrated by Kim B. Clark, president of Brigham Young University (the world’s most famous Mormon college), depicts a college student watching internet porn as the equivalent of a soldier wounded in battle. And those who know and ignore his “addiction” are compared to soldiers who ignore that wounded comrade. The film urges those in the know to report the onanistic miscreant to their bishop or another authority figure.

As the film ends, the self-abuser, who has clearly been subject to that intervention, is now depicted as having a healthy attitude toward the opposite sex, while the tattle-tale looks on.

Lazy Reporting at the Post

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Lazy Reporting at the Post

Is it ethical to write quick and dirty without any concern for the wider context? Certainly, I can plead guilty on many an occasion. However, I am not paid for this, and the Washington Post reporters appear to be well compensated. I would bet they don’t have two outside jobs either.

So, I am going to hold them to a higher standard.

Yes, they should write articles explaining the budget numbers instead of just reciting them like a 5th grader pulling data off the internet.

James Pilant

More Frat Boy Budget Reporting at the Washington Post | Beat the Press

The Washington Post gave us some good frat boy budget reporting in a front page story on the farm bill this morning. Frat boy budget reporting is when you write a piece that provides no information to the vast majority of readers but lets you go down to the budget reporters\’ frat house and give each other the budget reporters\’ secret handshake. In this case, the piece told us that the farm bill will cost $956.4 billion over the next decade, it will reduce spending on SNAP by $8 billion and save $16 billion in total.

Yes, this is really helpful. At least 0.1 percent of Washington Post readers have any clue what these numbers mean for the budget over the next decade. It is possible and easy to express these numbers in ways that would be meaningful.

CEPR\’s extraordinary Responsible Budget Reporting Calculator would allow any budget reporters to determine in seconds that the total bill is 2.05 percent of projected spending, which immediately would give the vast majority of Post readers a clear idea of the farm bill\’s importance to the budget. They could also quickly recognize that the cuts to the SNAP bill are 0.017 percent of projected spending and the total savings on the bill are 0.034 percent of projected spending.

It\’s really not hard to do budget reporting in a way that provides information to its audience

via More Frat Boy Budget Reporting at the Washington Post | Beat the Press.

Poverty and Banking

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

thinking1000104288Poverty and Banking

I’ve always wanted to teach a class with a spreadsheet analysis of several income groups. One would be a family of four at the poverty level, a little more than $20,000 a year and then two more at middle and upper class wage scales. I’d have the students calculate a budget. Then I would throw a few curve balls at them to see how they adapt – nothing spectacular, a flat tire, a child who wants $179 to go to band camp, etc. My students would see very quickly how awful it is to live on the line of financial disaster every day, to risk losing home and automobile constantly. They might see how difficult it is to live even while both parents are working. Of course, a good number of them are in that situation now. But for some, it would still be an important lesson.

It’s a small dream of mine.

James Pilant

8 surprising ways poverty is absurdly expensive – Salon.com

If you are poor you either don’t have a bank account (8 percent of American households) or have one that costs so much your money drains away. 28.3% of Americans conduct at least some of their financial transactions “outside of the mainstream banking system,” meaning they have to rely on expensive alternatives like non-bank money orders, check-cashing services, prepaid debit cards and payday loans.

For the poor, even being lucky enough to have a bank account means high fees. You don’t have enough to meet the minimum balance requirements so you pay a monthly fee that eats away at any money you have. You will pay a fee averaging $6 to cash your paycheck. You will be hit by terrible fees if the money runs out before the month does. Overdraft fees are incredible. A Pew graphic illustrates how the median overdraft for a $36 transaction racks up a median $35 in fees. “If an overdraft was treated like a short-term loan with a repayment period of seven days, then the annual percentage rate for a typical incidence would be over 5,000 percent.”

If you are not able to get a bank account (or don’t want to risk paying 5000% for writing a check), things are even worse. You turn to payday lenders. Payday loans cost an average of more than 138 percent in interest and fees. According to Think Progress,

“Most take out nine repeat loans per year with an interest rate as high as 400 percent. Forty-four percent of borrowers ultimately default, even after paying back their loans several times over, and thus are pushed ever closer to poverty. Critics have called the practice ‘legalized loan sharking’ and describe the industry as ‘bottom feeders.’ In recent years, major banks have also joined in the practice.”

via 8 surprising ways poverty is absurdly expensive – Salon.com.

From around the web.

From the web site, Jane Finch Action Against Poverty

http://jfaap.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/we-need-a-minimum-wage-of-14-now/

Residents from the Jane and Finch community and their allies have been calling for a $14 minimum wage for over a year.

Thousands of residents in our community support the $14 minimum wage demand because workers, particularly low income workers in our community and across the province, need meaningful raise now in order to meet their most basic needs!

The rumour that the provincial government might increase the minimum wage to only $11/hour does not help.  It just continues to legislate a poverty wage.

$2.13 An Hour?

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

$2.13 An Hour?

In business ethics, getting the government to clobber your workers generally does not seem to strike a responsive chord as in something we should fix. After all, the government did it, didn’t they?

Still, I find it hard to justify the paltry minimum wage given to restaurant employees. It often leaves them in poverty and their dependence upon tips would seem to make any pretense at dignity a temporary pose, since happy servility may be the best strategy for tips that may possibly get you up to the minimum wage.

I believe that using the government to punish your workers by using the lobby clout of your various organizations be it corporations or sole proprietorships is perfectly identical to doing it yourself.

James Pilant

A higher wage for all workers | Al Jazeera America

Let’s say you are a waitress or waiter. Let’s say you worked the night of Jan. 28. And let’s imagine that somewhere in your restaurant a big-screen television beamed President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address while you were taking orders, delivering food and busing dishes. Like millions of other Americans, you would be among the most underpaid employees in the country’s economy: tipped workers. While you may have been pleased to hear the president’s executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, you would know this move is irrelevant to you. And you would know that during the 1 hour and 5 minutes it took him to deliver his promises — on everything from making health care affordable to boosting the economy — you would have earned $2.30.

For those who are not tipped workers, the idea that these workers are only guaranteed a paltry $2.13 an hour might come as a shock. But the reality is that millions of tipped workers take home much less than the federal minimum wage, which has excluded them for more than 20 years. The National Employment Law Project crunched the numbers and found that the value of the tipped minimum wage, in real terms, has fallen 36 percent since it was frozen in 1991. A 2012 study by Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC-United) found that waitresses and waiters, who make up the lion’s share of tipped workers, suffer three times the poverty rate as the general workforce and that tipped workers rely disproportionately on food stamps.

 

via A higher wage for all workers | Al Jazeera America.

Pregnant Hypocrisy

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Pregnant Hypocrisy

Okay, look – this is getting ridiculous. Everyday I am confronted with just tons of evidence how little pregnant mothers and children are though of in this society. And yet, the lip service, the worshipful praise given the importance of motherhood and the holy infinitely valuable lives of children seems to be in full verbal pandemic mode.

I want to scream.

If we cared about pregnant women, we would do something to make their lives easier like paid leave.

If we cared about children, we would fund their education as a priority and maybe even make sure they have enough to eat.

If you think motherhood and childhood are just wonderful but aren’t willing to lift a finger to help either, maybe you could do me a favor and just shut up.

James Pilant

Why Are Workplaces Still Not Ready For Pregnant Workers? | ThinkProgress

The majority of new moms say they worked while they were pregnant, yet their employers often failed to accommodate their pregnancies before giving birth or their needs afterward, according to a new survey from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

The organizations surveyed more than 1,000 women between the ages of 18 and 45 who had given birth between July 2011 and June 2012. Nearly two-thirds of the women reported being employed during their pregnancies, with more than half working full time. And many of them needed some changes to continue working while also maintaining their health: 71 percent needed more frequent breaks, 61 percent needed to change their schedules or take leave time to get health care, more than half needed a change in duties such as taking on less heavy lifting or getting more chances to sit, and 40 percent needed another workplace adjustment.

Yet many said they either didn’t bring up their needs for accommodation while they were pregnant, possibly out of fear of repercussions or refusal, or had them rejected outright. More than 40 percent who needed more breaks never asked about them, and of those who did, 5 percent were rejected. Nearly 40 percent who needed to change their responsibilities never brought it up, and 9 percent who did were denied. More than a quarter who needed to change their schedules or take time off didn’t raise their need while 9 percent were rejected. While the report notes that most employers who were asked for an accommodation honor the requests, the percent who are denied is still troubling. “Based on estimates of the number of employed women who give birth annually, this means that more than one-quarter million women are denied their requests each year, threatening the health of women and their children.” It also notes that a “significant number” of those who were denied said their employer claimed that it wasn’t obligated to honor their pregnancy-related requests.

via Why Are Workplaces Still Not Ready For Pregnant Workers? | ThinkProgress.

Fracking and Birth Defects

On By southwerkIn business ethics

 

Fracking and Birth Defects

In the future of business ethics, fracking will be a centerpiece of everything that can go wrong ethically. We will begin discussing secret government discussions culminating in legislation totally at odds with preserving human health and safety. We will then discuss the incredible diversion of public lands into private hands for the benefit of the industry. Chapters will be written about how after any federal interference with the industry was disposed of, the industry proceeded to capture or destroy the state regulatory bodies. But the main focus will be on how the industry successfully sealed off access to any information on what it was actually doing.

In short, a business ethics train wreck.

The part I can’t predict will be how much damage the process will eventually cause.

James Pilant

Fracked Up: New Study Links Birth Defects To Living Near Fracking Site | Crooks and Liars

Living near hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — sites may increase the risk of some birth defects by as much as 30 percent, a new study suggests. In the U.S., more than 15 million people now live within a mile of a well.

The use of fracking, a gas-extraction process through which sand, water and chemicals are pumped into the ground to release trapped fuel deposits, has increased significantly in the U.S. over the past decade.

Five years ago, the U.S. produced 5 million barrels of oil per day; today, it’s 7.4 million, thanks largely to fracking.Supporters of the industry say it creates jobs and spurs the economy, while critics say its development is largely unregulated and that too little is known about pollution and health risks.

The report by the Colorado School of Public Health, released Jan. 28, gathered evidence from heavily drilled rural Colorado, which has among the highest densities of oil and gas wells in the U.S.

“What we found was that the risk of congenital heart defects (CHD) increased with greater density of gas wells — with mothers living in the highest-density areas at greatest risk,” Lisa McKenzie, a research associate at the Colorado School of Public Health and the lead author of the study, told Al Jazeera.The study examined links between the mother’s residential proximity to natural gas wells and birth defects in a study of more than 124,842 births from 1996 to 2009 in rural Colorado.

The study found that “births to mothers in the most exposed (areas with over 125 wells per mile) had a 30 percent greater prevalence of CHDs than births to mothers with no wells in a 10-mile radius of their residence.”

via Fracked Up: New Study Links Birth Defects To Living Near Fracking Site | Crooks and Liars.