By Posted on Posted in Events, General Commentary

Sigh. Why is it that so often after there’s a natural disaster, if you dig deeply into the cause of the death toll, you find humans taking unconscionable shortcuts in construction…and other humans in charge of safety oversight looking the other way?

Last week, I happened to sit next to a very intelligent and politically aware Pakistani gentleman at a Bruce Springsteen concert. In the hour before the music started, we had a long talk. My new friend just sent me a link to the work of a Pakistani ethics writer, Ardeshir Cowasjee. His latest weekly column is all about the direct responsibility for fatalities in the recent earthquake…on the shoulders of those crooked builders and didn’t-see-nuthin’ officials.

Read it and weep!

But then turn to another of Cowasjee’s columns, and see an example of the triumph of the human spirit.

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By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics

I finally got around to reading Judith Miller’s account of her Grand Jury testimony, as published in the New York Times three days ago.

When I was growing up, the Times was “the paper of record.” But in the decade of Jayson Blair and Judith Miller, you’ve got to wonder.

Where were her editors? How could they allow this rambling, repetitious essay to waltz into print? Then again, these are probably the same editors who did not question her reportage in the run-up to the war, in which she served as the Bush administration’s #1 print media cheerleader, engaging in press release journalism and insider-secret journalism that was a major force in advancing support for the war that–we all know, now–did not even begin to be justified by the stated claims of weapons of mass destruction.

And then there are some other very interesting hints in this piece:

I would still like to know what really happened in that Grand Jury room–and in the numerous meetings Miller had with White House sources before the button was pushed for “shock and awe.”

I’d also like to know why she deliberately misled her editors and the public by identifying Cheney’s adjutant Scooter Libby as a “former [Capitol] Hill staffer, rather than as a top white House aide.

And finally, what does Miller mean in her comments about security clearances and being privy to classified information? Media critic Norman Solomon, in a strongly worded piece covering Miller’s entire sordid history on Iraq, points out a big problem:

There’s nothing wrong with this picture if Judith Miller is an intelligence operative for the U.S. government. But if she’s supposed to be a journalist, this is a preposterous situation…

Interestingly, I’m more amused than bothered by the numerous inaccuracies she reports from the pages of her own notebooks. I’ve done journalism, I know what it’s like to take notes in the field, and these sorts of bloopers are normal and unavoidable. However, a good journalist goes back over the notes while the interview is still fresh, and makes the necessary corrections. No evidence of that here!

And Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize winner, too. Sheesh!

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By Posted on Posted in Other

I spent this past weekend at an amazing and energizing conference: Bioneers By the Bay, in Dartmouth, MA. This was one of 17 Bioneers conferences held on the same weekend around the US, plus the “main event” in San Rafael, California.

At the Massachusetts gathering, some of the most creative thinkers of our time gathered with 550 activists to discuss climate change and peak oil, personal lifestyle choices and organized social action, and nonpolluting/sustainable alternatives.

Among the speakers:

  • Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived for two years and eight days in a 1000-year-old California redwood tree–until an agreement was reached to safeguard that tree’s life–and who has been continually on the road as an activist since returning to the ground
  • Gunter Pauli, former CEO of Ecover who realized that his ecological detergents required destruction of rainforest–and embarked on a remarkable reclamation project
  • Anna Lappe (daughter of and co-author with Frances Moore Lappe), who travels around the world collecting and sharing wisdom from social change movements in developing countries
  • Dennis Whittle, who left the World Bank to start Global Giving, and shares the story of how a $5000 public bathroom changed the whole culture of a village

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be synthesizing the abundant notes I took at this conference and posting them to my various webzines. Probably most of that will happen in late November. In any case, I’ll posannouncementsts and links here when I start putting up the content. Meanwhile, you can see what you missed (including blogs and podcasts from the event) at the conference website, https://connectingforchange.org/

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

Sometimes it seems those of us who care about ethics are fighting a losing battle. My colleague, Chris Bauer, reports on some shocking findings in a survey conducted by the well-known accounting firm KPMG:

  • Of 459 executives at US companies with revenues above $250 million, 75% had experienced fraud
  • The fraud had cost 36% of the companies surveyed at least $1 million
  • For those companies experiencing fraud in the area of financial reporting, the average cost was $257,923,000 (other types of fraud had less dollar impact)

I believe the only way we can turn this around is to show businesses that ethical behavior is ultimately profitable–that’s the position I advocated in my book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, and I continue to advocate that position in the Ethics Pledge campaign and elsewhere. The costs of the fraud itself, the hit the company takes when it’s discovered, the environmental, workplace harassment, and other lawsuits that tend to crop up against fraudulent companies, etc. etc. make this a very obvious conclusion. But apparently the business world can’t see it.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

I’m reminded of the old Doonsebury book title, “But The Pension Fund Was Just Sitting There!”

The above link is a Toronto Globe & Mail article about convicted embezzler Paul Coffin, who stole $1.55 million from the Canadian government. Somehow, the courts decided that partial restitution ($1 million) and community service were an appropriate punishment. So now he’s in front of a class of 180 McGill University undergraduate business students.

He described Ottawa’s sponsorship funds as a “cookie jar” that kept on giving.
“I seemed to just keep going back to the cookie jar that seemed to have no bottom and no lid,” he said, according to several students.

He said the program failed to provide checks and balances. “The carte-blanche system played to my weakness.”

Duh! It’s not exactly rocket science that any government or private entity should have strong accounting safeguards, and that crooks will exploit weaknesses of those that don’t.

Surely, having talked his way out of prison with community service, this man should be expected to provide some value for his “students”–and lessons applicable to the wider world.

I hope someone is holding him accountable–this time.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/opinion/22thur3.html

Hoo, boy! They just really think the public is asleep at the switch! The above editorial castigates the Senate for sneaking a provision into a transportation bill that would allow incumbent senators to raise:

…An incumbent’s donation to the national party would be free for recycling right back through the new loophole as found money for the donor’s own campaign. Allowing that would circumvent the three-year-old reform limits and establish dual campaign standards: a free and easy one for incumbents, and a tight one for challengers, barred from running “leadership” kitties. Challengers would be restricted to collecting $4,200 per person for a campaign, while a senator could collect $34,200 per donor for the same race.

Hello! Earth to Senate: this is not OK! Can you say “double standard?” Incumbents already have a tremendous advantage, including the ability to send out vote-for-me propaganda disguised as constituent newsletters, at taxpayer expense; this would skew the field beyond anything that could be called a democracy.

Action time: call and write your Senators. Let them know you want this provision stripped out of this bill, and that you’ll be watching the vote

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

As Dennis Kozlowski, former Tyco CEO, heads off to a well-deserved extended “rest” in the slammer, and news reports show that a billion dollars was stolen from the Iraqi people in the form of crooked contracts, it’s time to remind ourselves that corporate theft is not a victimless crime.

Real people–innocent people–get hurt. Like the unfortunate former Enron employees whose pensions were wiped out.

In the case of the Iraq story, people will die because a well-organized fraud ring left soldiers to fend off attacks in decrepit armored cars that can’t even resist an ordinary bullet. In New Orleans, people died because a cronyistic corrupt appointment left someone in charge whose previous experience had nothing to do with disaster planning, and because a legalized theft of the money–and the National Guard personnel–that should have been going to repair and protect the levees was siphoned off into a certain unjustified and very expensive war. Yes, add to the nearly 2000 US dead and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in an empty chase of WMDs, hundreds of New Orleaneans whose lives could have been saved if the money hadn’t been stolen from flood control, and if the Guard were at home where they belong, helping in a domestic crisis.

Oh, and speaking of cronyistic corrupt appointments, did you see what happened when the Bush administration tried to name a veterinarian as acting Director of the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health? They backed off in three days, and then denied they ever did such a thing. This is to replace the principled Dr. Susan Woods, who resigned because she could no longer publicly represent an agency that was stonewalling on a reproductive freedom issue. At least the new appointee, Theresa A. Toigo, has a 20-year background at the FDA and knows health issues. Good luck, Theresa–you’ll need it.

Back to Mr. Kozlowski: My question to you and your ilk: was it worth it? Were those ill-gotten gains that you enjoyed for a few years worth utterly destroying your company, your reputation and for the next 8 to 30 years, your own personal freedom? You were already one of the highest-paid executives in history. Did you really need to plunder beyond that? Couldn’t you have still afforded a $6000 shower curtain, if that’s how you wanted to waste your money?

In spite of these clowns, I still believe that nice guys don’t finish last, and that in the long term, business success means building a company (or a government) based on ethics and on building real long-term relationships created with honesty, integrity, and quality. Please visit my website if you’d like to know more.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, General Commentary

https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/fema.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/politics/10policy.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/national/national special/10contracts.html

These three articles together paint a deeply disturbing picture. I see a very chilling future, in which the poor are shipped off to gulags, the tattered remains of the once-vaunted safety net go up in smoke, and war profiteers get richer on the backs of those in the camps.

It sounds alarmingly similar to some of the events during the
German occupation of much of Europe in the 1940s.

The first link is apparently the journal (with photos) of a member of a conservative Southern church who tried to bring supplies in to a refugee camp in Oklahoma–a camp that she knew, because her church had a cabin there. Not only were her supplies refused, but she saw and documented evidence that detainees will not be allowed to leave. And there have been wide reports of help and supplies refused; as one example, our local paper yesterday ran an interview with a local doctor who flew down and had to cool his heels in Baton Rouge while exactly one doctor was trying to handle the entire medical needs of the New Orleans Convention Center evacuees. (To view the story, you’ll have to register)

As a journalist, I’m trained to be skeptical, and that this detainee camp journal is posted on a conspiracy site makes me suspicious. But as far as I can tell (I’m no Photoshop expert), the pictures and the narrative are genuine.

If this is really true, it would appear the government is setting up prison camps for the poor and homeless people who were unlucky enough to live in Katrina’s path.

This is simply unacceptable. Those who lived near the Soviet Gulags and the Nazi extermination camps claimed they did not protest because they did not know. If this turns out to be true, we must protest loudly and consistently.

The second and third links are stories from the New York Times. First, that some people in the GOP have seen the storm as an opportunity to advance their social policy: tuition vouchers for evacuees attending private schools, an attack on “prevailing wage” laws, and a fast-track green light for industry. Given that we have made no informed decision as a country on how and where to rebuild New Orleans, the other overdeveloped coastal areas, and the wetlands between the city and the Gulf of Mexico, the fast track for new construction is a concern.

Don’t get me wrong. Like everyone else, I want to see jobs created, infrastructure rebuilt, and some sense of normalcy restored. But I want to make sure we treat these delicate and storm-prone coastlines and wetlands with respect, and that we think long and hard about how and where to build without just rushing blindly forward to destroy more of the barrier islands and wetlands and places where no sane person would build.

Coming on the heels of what we now know about how first, the Bush administration repeatedly slashed budgets for shoring up the levees, second, stood idly by as the hurricane swept in, and third, completely mismanaged the disaster response (where they do share the blame with local officials), it’s particularly scary. Did you know that while the government was doing essentially nothing to get ready, Wal-Mart mobilized a fleet of trucks, filled them with relief supplies, and positioned them close by but outside storm range so they could respond instantly? I am, to put it mildly, not generally a fan of Wal-Mart–but in this case they were terrific. And if they could be so organized, surely the federal, state, and local governments could have done a lot to minimize the catastrophe.

Finally, the article about high-powered well-connected lobbyists lining up to make sure their clients have a place at the trough. The story, by John Broder, says,

Hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts have already been let
and billions more are to flow to the private sector in the weeks and months
to come. Congress has already appropriated more than $62 billion for an
effort that is projected to cost well over $100 billion.

Some experts warn that the crisis atmosphere and the open federal purse are
a bonanza for lobbyists and private companies and are likely to lead to the
contract abuses, cronyism and waste that numerous investigations have
uncovered in post-war Iraq.

Not surprisingly, Halliburton has already pushed to the front of the line; its Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary landed a $500 million contract. Yes, these companies are capable of doing the work. But the ethics questions are, to say the least, troubling given the sordid history of these companies in Iraq and elsewhere, and their close ties to the Bush administration.

All in all, the whole thing–the situation that these three articles each reveal one slice of–is very troubling: a triple attack on America’s core values of decency, democracy, and charity.

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By Posted on Posted in Events, General Commentary

Like everyone else, I am horrified by the devastation in New Orleans and Mississippi and along the Gulf Coast. Frugal, I would point out, does not mean stingy. I made a generous donation to the Red Cross and notified someone who was offering to match the gift (he has reached his maximum–this was a friend, not a company). Even if you feel tapped out after whatever you gave after last winter’s tsunami, I hope you find room in your heart to open up and give again.

I have been to New Orleans and experienced its grace and charm–but also its grinding poverty and the big disparity between the successful and the have-nots, more glaring than anywhere else I’ve been in this country. It is the poor who were left behind during the evacuation, and who were met by the pathetic and inadequate response of a government that had several days to prepare, and didn’t make it a priority–in fact, a government that had systematically cut funding for repairing the levees, months ago, even as the city has been sinking for decades and even before Katrina, was well below sea-level. This is nothing short of a crime against the American people.

My hope is that A New New Orleans can be created, but not in the same spot. There must be some higher ground nearby where a new city can be built. And wouldn’t it be great if that city was created by planners who really understand the challenges of the 21st century: who design in such a way that not only does the city have the grace and charm of the (still miraculously surviving) French Quarter, but that it’s built to be sustainable environmentally, socially, and economically: that it’s designed from the ground up to create neighborhoods that people *want* to live in, that it’s set up with shopping and traffic patterns that minimize the need to use cars, that’s it’s built on a human scale and using the latest renewable energy techniques to have the whole city live lightly on the land and be as food and energy self-sufficient as possible.

That would be the best memorial to those who were swept away in the rising tides.
.
If any of you have newsletters aimed at writers, there’s an incentive immediately following from my colleague, Dee Power–please go ahead and reprint it.

As you may know we have started a fund raiser for the Red Cross, so far it’s raised
over $1000. If you publish a newsletter, belong to a discussion group or bulletin
board, would you consider including this announcement.

******************************
Help Us Help The Red Cross

Make a donation of any size to the American Red Cross and we will give you our list
of 300 literary agents with names, addresses, and email addresses, a list of nearly 200
newspaper and freelance book editors and reviewers, the email addresses over 500
independent bookstores, and a format for a press kit and news release. Make your
donation at the Red Cross Website https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.aspbews

by credit card or send your check to American Red Cross P.O. Box 37243
Washington, D.C. 20013 or call (1-800-435-7669).

After you’ve made your donation, email offer@brianhillanddeepower.com Please
include your first name and it would be nice if you would tell us the amount of your
donation, but it’s not mandatory. This is strictly on the honor system. Your email
address, or that you contributed will not be shared by us with anyone. After you
email us you’ll be sent directions on how to download your gifts.

Please pass this message on.
*************************************************

Thanks Dee

https://www.BrianHillAndDeePower.com Dee Power (Ms.) is co-author with Brian Hill of “The Making of a Bestseller: Success Stories from Authors and the Editors, Agents, and Booksellers Behind Them” March 2005, Dearborn Trade, ISBN 0793193087 Coming October 2005, “Over Time,” the novel, ISBN 0974075418

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