Kindness - could it be a minimalist value?

Here's poet Naomi Shihab Nye's thoughts on kindness - a favorite poem of mine, and one I'd like to give you to think about before you leave for the summer:

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity 
   of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in  
   a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night  
   with plans
and the simple breath that 
   kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest 
   thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other 
   deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that 
   makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to 
   mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

What to do next?

"That the truly probing questions are being asked by bloggers rather than by national journalists is becoming increasingly commonplace," writes Glenn Greenwald, a noted blogger who has just published a book that attempts to answer the question, How Would a Patriot Act?

Greenwald's blog bio says he spent the past 10 years as a litigator in NYC specializing in First Amendment challenges (including some of the highest-profile free speech cases over the past few years), civil rights cases, and corporate and security fraud matters.

Here's John Dean's blurb for the book:

"Glenn Greenwald has assembled a devastating bill of particulars against the Bush and Cheney administration's insistence on operating outside the rule of law. He has gathered solid information and marshaled a litany of abuses of power that make Richard Nixon's imperial presidency look timid. All thinking Americans must answer How Would A Patriot Act? this coming election, and those who ignore what Greenwald has to say act at our collective peril."

-- John W. Dean, former Nixon White House Counsel and
author of Conservatives Without Conscience

Plagiarize... let no one else's work evade your eyes...

Lest I fall into the trap, let me attribute the title of this post where it belongs: it's a line from a song by Tom Lehrer.

Here's the story: a hot new author, only 19 years old and a Harvard sophomore, is in hot water.

Update 2: Young Author Admits Borrowing Passages

A Harvard University sophomore with a highly publicized first novel acknowledged Monday that she had borrowed material, accidentally, from another author's work and promised to change her book for future editions.

Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life," published in March by Little, Brown and Company, was the first of a two-book deal reportedly worth six figures. But on Sunday, the Harvard Crimson cited seven passages in Viswanathan's book that closely resemble the style and language of the novels of Megan McCafferty.

"When I was in high school, I read and loved two wonderful novels by Megan McCafferty, 'Sloppy Firsts' and 'Second Helpings,' which spoke to me in a way few other books did. Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel ... and passages in these books," Viswanathan, 19, said in a statement issued by her publisher.

"While the central stories of my book and hers are completely different, I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words. I am a huge fan of her work and can honestly say that any phrasing similarities between her works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious. My publisher and I plan to revise my novel for future printings to eliminate any inappropriate similarities.

"I sincerely apologize to Megan McCafferty and to any who feel they have been misled by these unintentional errors on my part."

The book had a first printing of 100,000 copies.

Viswanathan, who was 17 when she signed her contract with Little, Brown, is the youngest author signed by the publisher in decades. DreamWorks has already acquired the movie rights to her first book.

Schindler's List

I can’t seem to get the movie out of my head. I have been thinking about the comparison between one person's horror and another's luxory. But mostly I keep thinking about Nancy’s question, “Why would I end the course with this movie?”

I have my one answer. In the United States people have religious freedom. It is illegal to kill someone just because he or she is a Jew. However, it was legal for Germans to murder thousands of Jews in WWII. Schindler was thrown in jail for just kissing one. That is how deep the hate ran.

But I thought about how the law may have changed but ethical choices did not. Schindler still did what was right to him even though it was illegal. He worked within the system to save lives. I thought it was interesting how one person still followed his values even though an entire nation did not. Just because of one man’s (Hitler) values an entire population of people was almost eliminated.

I think this movie just goes to exemplify Bok’s discussion about needing common values and ethics for society to survive. Add the continued massacres of people all over the world…the Holocaust…Cambodia…Africa…the Middle East. All over the world people are still killing each other. I think that we need to start working toward a solution instead of adding to the death. Bok is right to say that eventually peace will result with no one left to live it.

I think that values and ethics can be a foundation for peace…one day if we start.

More on sex-offender registries

I heard this story on NPR this afternoon while I was driving home. Thought you'd be interested -- here's a link, and then when you get to the NPR site, click on the "listen to this story" button.

Many states -- including Utah -- list hard-core predators alongside people who may pose no risk to the public. There's a map at the NPR site that shows states' policies.

Murders Put Focus on Sex-Offender Registry Policies

All Things Considered, April 21, 2006 · Nobody knows why Stephen Marshall killed two men who were on the sex-offender registry in Maine. Immediately after, he took his own life.

One of the men Marshall killed, Joseph Gray, was on the registry for raping a child. The other, William Elliott, was listed because he'd slept with his girlfriend before she turned 16.

These deaths and others raise troubling questions about the public sex-offender registries which every state has. And they highlight the fact that many states list hard-core predators alongside people who may pose little risk to the community.

When Mark Perk read about the men murdered in Maine, he thought the same fate might have befallen him. "They put my name and address on there," Perk says. "Anyone can find me. Yeah, it scared us."

Perk is on Illinois' sex-offender registry for having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl. She's now his wife and the mother of their two children. Perk says he knows he broke the law -- but he says he's no child molester. He's just treated like one.

"My wife and I get pulled over constantly because our license is registered to a sex offender," he says.

Perk says he has received telephone calls from people calling him a child molester and threatening his life. "People pull by the house all the time, staring in the windows," he says.

(MORE)

Privacy, cyber-stalking & harassment

Speaking of privacy online, there's a good but gasp-worthy article in today's New York Times. Here's a link: A Sinister Web Entraps Victims of Cyberstalkers.

Utah's Sex Offender Registry

In case you haven't seen it for yourself, here's a link to the sex offender registry for Utah.

Note that you have to promise not to use information you find there to harass the offenders or their families and friends, and there's a reminder that such harassment is against the law.

To search it, type in your zip code.

Sex Offenders & The Internet

I'm not all that in favor of having registered sex offenders made public for anyone to see. I would be much more in favor of sex offenders having to be registered in some sort of database. A database for employers, or anyone with a certain need-to-know, may look.

For example, a child rapist isn't going to be a concern to me, a single white adult male with no children under my care. If John Doe, two houses down, is a convicted child rapist, that's not going to matter to me. I have no need to know. However, if good ol' Johnny is trying to get a job at the local elementary school, then the school might want to do a background check on him.

Having sex offenders register with a public data base, I think, is not fair. I would like to see it be much more on a need-to-know basis.

As for the "They didn't put the whole story" claim, I wouldn't mind it if suspects/criminals had the opportunity to write up 'their side of the story' to be attached to the rest of the file. If the database had not only the initial charges, but what they were found guilty of, in addition to 'their side of the story', then anyone researching that individual would have more information on which to formulate an opinion and make a decision.

I had the USU police called on me once for an accusation which I do, and always will, claim was false. When the police spoke with me there was very little, if any, 'So what's your side of the story?’ They were very much "This is what we've been told about you, so this is what we're telling you to do." Some of the information which had been reported to them, as I saw it on the official report, was questionable as to its accuracy. The following week I inquired as to what I may do if I feel that there was information of questionable accuracy in the accusation. I was told that I could file a 'my side of the story', which I assume would then have been attached to my report. I think this would be a good option for sex offenders.

Bottom line: There should be some reform made in the way the state handles the information concerning sex offenders.

Syndicated Blogging

According to an AP story in WiReD News, a new syndication service called BlogBurst will feed stories and headlines from 600 participating blogs into the mainstream media.

Newspapers are looking to BlogBurst to provide expert blog commentary on travel, women's issues, technology, food, entertainment and local stories, areas where publishers may not have dedicated staff...

Magazines & Advertising

Question: Is a magazine ethically required to be an open forum for all advertisers who have the ability to pay?

No. Magazines and advertisers are two different species living symbiotically. But, just like species, you have different breeds of each.

In our free enterprise system, magazines don't exist for the greater good; they exist because someone somewhere has some sort of agenda. Different magazines have different agendas. For example, I have never read Ms. Magazine, but judging by its self description as a feminist magazine which is "More Than A Magazine - A Movement", I would assume that's its primary agenda is not to make a huge profit or report the news. I would guess that it's primary agenda is along the lines of liberating and empowering women in a male dominated world.

On the other hand, there are magazines like Time, whose agenda is more along the lines of reporting on important issues in today's world. Then there is a magazine called The National Review, which is a very conservative publication. It's agenda is very much conservative politics.

And then there are different breeds of advertisements; some want you to buy something, while others don't. For example, take the anti-smoking commercials which we've all seen. They aren't trying to persuade me to buy something or give them money.

So my point is this: I believe that magazines reserve the right to refuse certain or all advertisements. Magazines and Advertisers only coexist symbiotically when their agendas allow them to.

and out in the real world...

Calvin and Hobbs do ethics

Public Relations, Google Style

Google Romance