Guitarist/Philosopher Robert Fripp, himself a victim of various record company shenanigans vis. his royalties and finances in general over the course of almost fifty years on the Front Lines, has this to say about corporate ethics:
Recognisable features of the ethical company involve these attributes:
transparency; straightforwardness; accountability; owning-up; honesty; fairness; common decency; distributive justice.
Recognisable features of a company whose base is ethically challenged are these:
dissembling; use of threats; unkindness to employees; a widespread use of gagging orders; an inequitable distribution of company income;
A company which:
would rather conduct its business verbally (particularly with regard to disputed issues) instead of committing its views to writing; commonly resorts to litigation, or employs the frequent threat of such; employs gagging clauses as standard policy; pays its directors highly disproportionate sums in comparison with its employees; is suspect and should be avoided wherever possible.
It is a sad commentary on current business and public life that this needs to be written or debated.
The Four Pillars of The Ethical Company: Honesty, Responsibility, Equity, Goodwill It is my fervent hope that with the apparent death of Reaganism in the recent election, that perhaps government can set a tone more in keeping with the Four Pillars than with a denial of fraternal stewardship-because we are, whether we like it or not, the keepers of our brothers and sisters. A society is only is strong as its weakest link.
Doesn't it suck? The whole internet is alive with the buzz of some dipstick that kept photos of his naked wife on his cell phone. He leaves the phone at Mickey D's and somehow the pictures ended up on the world wide web. Can you believe it? A series of tubes doing this to the poor guy.
And to top it off, the #1 google search is "Tina Sherman Pictures".
It may very well be the reason you're here. Well, you'll not find the pictures here. I haven't seen them. I'm not interested. But, I'm glad you showed up.
President-elect Obama hasn't even taken office yet and the nutbars are lining up. Senator Jon Kyl is vowing to filibuster judicial appointments if he thinks they are "too liberal".
Remember the uproar back in 2005 because the Democrats were holding up judicial appointments?
Remember VP Cheney's threat to use the "nuclear option"; that is, to take away the 60 vote requirment to end debate?
Remember The Gang of 14 compromise that let Dubya get a few of his nominees through and kept "the nuclear option" off the table?
Not that it matters, yet as no nominations have been made, but it is interesting that Republican Jon Kyl would think it's ok for him to do exactly what the Democrats were criticized for doing just 3 years ago.
Interesting, but not surprising. "Republican standards" became an oxymoron long ago.
On The News Hour, back in 2005, Senator Kyl said this:
"For 214 years it has been the tradition of the Senate to approve judicial nominees by a majority vote. Many of our judges and, for example, Clarence Thomas, people might recall, was approved by either fifty-one or fifty-two votes as I recall. It has never been the rule that a candidate for judgeship that had majority support was denied the ability to be confirmed once before the Senate. It has never happened before. So we're not changing the rules in the middle of the game. We're restoring the 214-year tradition of the Senate because in the last two years Democrats have begun to use this filibuster."
It seems it was a problem for him to have the Democrats hold up nominees with a filibuster rather than simply grant an "up or down" vote. My how times change.
Not that he had much left, but Ralph Nader committed career suicide on election night. We have watched this a half-dozen times and we're still shocked.
The Polls close here on the West Coast in 32 1/2 hours. I have a wonderful friend Winona who at 94 years old has seen incredible changes in her life time.
Two World Wars, women getting the vote, the stock market crash, the Great Depression, The New Deal (FDR made her a Democrat for life!), Korea, the Civil Rights Act passage, Kennedy's Assassination, Viet Nam, MLK's Assassination, man landing on and coming back from the moon, a President resign and a President impeached, etc!
This doesn't even take into account the technological changes such as computers, the internet, email, cell phones, jet travel, television, etc.
But, she is convinced the one thing she never thought she'd see is an African American being elected President.
We have a mail-in election. She's already voted. She voted for Obama. She is convinced he is going to win.
