“The sandwich was still dry. So I took a bite and passed it to the next guy.”

Those 17 words help explain why nine miners, trapped underground for three days at Quecreek, Pennsylvania, came out alive — and why their story is one of the most heartwarming of the summer.

And what a summer! Look what else we’ve been handed. Corporate executives in handcuffs. Markets in free fall. Priestly abuse writ large. Forest fires intentionally set. A congressman expelled and a senator rebuked for unethical behavior. Reading the news, you could be forgiven for thinking that human nature is irredeemably immoral and that life itself, as Thomas Hobbes famously observed, is “nasty, brutish, and short.”

And then comes Thomas Foy and the incredible floating lunch pail. Foy and his eight companions were driven by a relentless rush of water into an air pocket in a mine 240 feet deep. The water, gushing in when their mining machinery inadvertently pierced an abandoned shaft next to theirs, blocked their escape. They could do nothing but wait.

But nobody gave up. The crew at the surface sunk a six-inch shaft into their chamber. Using an untried technique, they blasted hot air down the hole, giving life-saving oxygen and warmth to the miners and holding back the advancing water with the air pressure. Then they drilled a shaft large enough to bring up the men — and persisted despite breaking a drill bit midway through the boring and hearing no signs of life from the miners for hours on end.

You know the rest: How the escape shaft reached them, and how one by one, faces blackened with coal dust and radiant with relief, they were lifted to their families and friends.

Like the rock under Quecreek, this is a story richly veined with lessons to be mined. There’s the story of a technology accurate enough to have the bore holes, after grinding almost a vertical football-field through the earth, come within inches of their targets. There’s the story of readiness, having drill bits available and skills well-honed. There’s the story of ingenuity and daring, risking an untested hot-air system during a potential disaster and under the glare of publicity. There’s the story of persistence, exhaustion, and determination, with success never guaranteed but failure never an option.

Yet there’s something more. When that lunch pail miraculously bobbed into sight, and Mr. Foy found that still-dry corned beef sandwich and those two sodas, what made him share? If this was the end — and there were moments when that’s what they all thought — why be nice to others? If what matters in a crisis is “looking out for No. 1″ (as some corporate executives these days seem to be saying), why care about numbers 2 through 9?

Because that’s the way we’re designed. People are made to share, to care, to nourish and support each other. Cynics get it wrong when they describe human nature as greedy, selfish, and cold-hearted. There are far too many accounts — from wars, wrecks, and disasters — of people risking their lives to save others. Moral courage keeps showing up in the toughest places, shattering all those grim philosophies about the meanness of our natures.

It’s time we shifted our metaphors. Too often we think of life as a finger-in-the-dike activity. We think of humanity — tiny, frightened, and outclassed — struggling desperately to hold back a Zuider Zee of evil sloshing darkly outside our earthworks and ready to drown the whole Holland of our humanity.

And then you hear about Thomas Foy and his concern for “the next guy.” You realize there’s a bit of Foy in everyone. You realize that life is not just about holding back the flood. It’s about (as Michelangelo believed) chipping away the marble until the statue inside is revealed. It’s not about wishing for heroes and yearning for moral giants. It’s about the heroism of the ordinary. It’s about individuals who, not thinking of themselves as exceptionally courageous, just do what comes naturally.

Like sharing a sandwich, even though it could be their last. That’s human nature, and that’s what keeps people alive.

(c)2002 by the Institute for Global Ethics

“Everyone gets reprimanded so often nowadays. If someone takes the moral high ground, you almost know they’re going to sink.”

– Laura Furst, New Jersey resident, speaking to the Washington Post while waiting in line to buy Slurpees for her two children at the local 7-Eleven convenience store. The Post piece notes that despite the stern censure of local lawmaker Sen. Robert Torricelli by the Senate Ethics Committee, most voters seem rather nonplussed. (”NJ Voters Unfazed by Torricelli’s Troubles,” Washington Post, Aug. 1.)

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee last week “severely admonished” Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) for accepting gifts from a campaign donor at the same time the Senator was acting officially on the donor’s behalf.

The committee said Torricelli should have known that taking the gifts was wrong.

While the Ethics Committee signaled strong disapproval of Torricelli’s behavior, it opted to write a letter of admonishment instead of voting for censure or recommending his case be sent to the full Senate for action.

Torricelli, accused of a raft of conflict-of-interest abuses, was ultimately censured for violating Senate ethics rules on three occasions — all involving David Chang, a businessman now serving 18 months in prison for obstruction of justice and making illegal campaign contributions to Torricelli.

Chang first approached Torricelli in 1995, asking for the senator’s help in recovering $71 million he said he was owed in a failed business deal with the North Korean government. Torricelli reportedly took up Chang’s case, inviting him into meetings with high-ranking politicians and businessmen, reported the New York Times.

At the same time, however, Torricelli accepted gifts from Chang, including earrings for female friends and family members, two bronze statues, and a big-screen TV and CD player, according to the Times report.

Prosecutors say the gifts were meant to curry favor with Torricelli, who denied any undue influence or wrongdoing.

In January, federal prosecutors decided to abandon criminal charges against the senator, but turned over their documents to the Senate Ethics Committee, which held hearings on the matter.

Slamming Torricelli for accepting gifts he should have known were bribes, the committee concluded, “Your actions and failure to act led to violations of Senate rules … and created at least the appearance of impropriety.”

Torricelli, who is in a tight reelection race for his Senate seat this November, took the Senate floor last week and apologized to his constituents, saying he would “take full personal responsibility” for his actions.

Also on Capitol Hill last week, Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) was sentenced to eight years in prison for racketeering, bribery, and demanding kickbacks from constituents and staff members.

Traficant’s conviction, which also carries stiff financial penalties, follows his expulsion last week from the House of Representatives on a 420-to-1 vote.

U.S. District Court Judge Lesley Wells, who oversaw the case against Traficant, last week ordered him to pay the cost of his own imprisonment, slamming the nine-term lawmaker for “flagrant abuses of an office of public trust,” reported the Reuters news agency.

NEW YORK
Two former WorldCom executives last week surrendered to authorities, who charged the men with conspiring to prop up the foundering telecommunications company by hiding more than $3.8 billion in debt from shareholders and creditors.

Scott Sullivan, the company’s former financial officer, and David Myers, the former controller, face seven counts of securities fraud, conspiracy, and filing false financial statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sullivan was fired and Myers was forced to resign in June after WorldCom revealed that it had disguised expenses as investments for more than 15 months, hiding $3.85 million in debt, reported CBS MarketWatch.

Last month, WorldCom, the nation’s No. 2 long-distance phone service provider, declared the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history, admitting it was $41 billion in debt instead of $107 billion in the black.

Sullivan, who is accused of ordering Myers to hide the debt through fraudulent accounting, posted $10 million in bail. Myers, accused of complying, posted $2 million in bail. A hearing is scheduled for September 3, according to CNN.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft kept the arrests on a high profile by holding an afternoon press conference to discuss them. “Corrupt corporate executives are no better than common thieves when they betray their employees and steal from their investors,” he told reporters.

Ashcroft’s appearance is viewed as a clear signal that the Bush administration wants to be seen as vigilant in policing corporate fraud, reported CBS.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Justice Department last week launched a criminal probe into possible accounting fraud at media giant AOL Time Warner.

The probe follows an exposé by the Washington Post, which covered a series of unconventional accounting methods used by the firm’s America Online division.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has already launched a civil investigation into $270 million in transactions at AOL Time Warner between July 2000 and March 2002, reported the Associated Press.

News of the Justice Department probe sent the company’s stock downward as investors worried that another corporate titan could be involved in financial wrongdoing.

AOL Time Warner downplayed the Justice Department investigation as an expected process, according to AP coverage.

“In the current environment, when anyone raises a question about accounting, it’s not surprising that the relevant government agencies will want to look into the facts,” the company said in a statement.

VENICE
An alleged Russian mobster was arrested in Italy last week for purportedly masterminding the plan to rig two ice-skating competitions at last winter’s Olympic games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The man, Uzbek-born Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, was arrested at his Italian resort home after an extensive investigation by Italian police, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. attorneys.

Citing wiretap evidence, prosecutors say Tokhtakhounov engineered a “quid pro quo” vote swap with as many as six Olympic judges in a deal meant to curry favor with France, reported the Associated Press.

Tokhtakhounov, widely reputed as a kingpin in organized crime, “has been involved in drug distribution, illegal arms sales, and trafficking in stolen vehicles,” according to a criminal complaint filed last week.

The complaint alleges that after French authorities asked Tokhtakhounov to leave his home in France, he attempted to curry favor with the French government by rigging the Olympic events to award France a gold medal.

The alleged voting conspiracy ensured that France would win the pairs dancing competition in exchange for Russia’s win in the pairs figure skating competition, prosecutors claim.

The latter vote — in which the Russian skaters fell, but still received the gold medal — prompted a public uproar, resulting in a second awarding of gold medals to a Canadian team and the suspension of two French judges.

Last week, prosecutors said they found evidence that the scandal went far deeper than those two judges, promising more arrests and the extradition of Tokhtakhounov to the United States to face charges.

If convicted, Tokhtakhounov faces up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines, according to the Los Angeles Times.

WASHINGTON
The fight over digital file swapping hit Capitol Hill last week with the introduction of a new bill that would give powerful media companies the right to hack personal computers in the hunt for copyrighted material.

The measure, proposed by U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), would enable media firms to patrol the Internet and attack computers trying to swap music, movie, and text files without permission.

The bill is the latest salvo in the escalating battle over corporate copyright in the Digital Age, with file-swapping services like KaZaA, Morpheus, and the now-defunct Napster redefining expectations and exposure in the digital terrain.

The movie and recording industries say such peer-to-peer services are costing them millions in lost profits as users simply swap protected matter without paying a price.

Although the proposed bill bars companies from actually deleting files and planting viruses, it would allow them to invade peer-to-peer systems and use a variety of methods to swamp, block, and hobble computers that are breaking the law, reported ABC News.

While such activities are currently illegal in the United States, the media industry argues that giving them the right to conduct so-called legalized hacking is the only way to protect their profit margins.

Critics of the plan — from privacy rights groups to tech industry power players AOL, Sun Microsystems, and Verizon — say the proposed law would breach personal rights in a dramatic and dangerous way.

While the bill gives users the right to sue media firms that damage their computers through hacking, the companies are not required to identify themselves while hacking, making it impossible for most users to know who is doing the damage. Critics also note that many file-swapping computers are based internationally, beyond the reach of U.S. law.

“No other industry has been deputized to prosecute its own enforcement actions, and we see no compelling reason to provide this enormous grant of power” to media firms, the Computer and Communications Industry Association warned last week.

BOSTON
A Seattle software company whose Internet filter is widely used was sued last week by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which wants the firm to reveal how its filtering program works.

The suit, which would force N2H2 Inc. to divulge its coding, is part of a growing battle over how to keep the Internet safe for children — and for organizations vulnerable to lawsuits if offensive material is accessed.

Filter makers say such information — which keywords they use when screening out Web sites and the list of blocked sites, for example — is proprietary, confidential, and critical to maintaining an edge over competitors.

Critics say such secrecy shields the companies from revealing how they limit users’ access to the Internet, and is biased to block access to sites that cover topics including gay rights and abortion issues, reported the Boston Globe.

In a bid to force the issue, the ACLU last week filed suit on behalf of Benjamin Edelman, an incoming Harvard Law School student, who wants to decrypt and analyze the blocking process of N2H2 products.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and software user agreements, such decoding and analysis are illegal.

The ACLU says the DMCA goes too far, blocking people from analyzing, discussing, and criticizing copyrighted works — Internet filters — that are increasingly being used to control the content of U.S. libraries and schools.

“When you look at the details of what the programs actually block, there’s a troubling systematic trend in the systems blocking more than just porn,” Edelman told the Associated Press.

The ACLU suit seeks permission for Edelman to examine how N2H2 blocks sites. The company insists such access is unnecessary, saying it reviews its blocked list periodically and allows users to petition if they feel a site is unjustly blocked.

PARIS
An Egyptian newspaper editor last week was ordered to appear in French court to answer charges that his paper published an anti-Semitic article distributed in France in violation of the country’s hate-speech laws.

Ibrahim Nafie, editor-in-chief of the popular Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, was summoned last week over the article, “Jewish Pie from Arab Blood,” which appeared in his paper in October 2000.

The article resurrects a 162-year-old anti-Semitic myth that Jewish rabbis use Christian blood in religious rites, specifically murdering Christians and baking their blood into pastries, reported the Associated Press.

Such myths have resurfaced in several Arab papers, including the Saudi-run Al Riyadh, especially as tensions heighten between Israel and Palestine. Under U.S. pressure, Al Riyadh apologized for its use of the myths.

Although hackles went up over the Al-Ahram story, French authorities finally decided to press charges after they discovered that 1,100 copies of the offending Al-Ahram issue were distributed in France.

French law explicitly forbids the “incitement of hatred and anti-Semitic violence,” a clause authorities say was clearly violated by the Al-Ahram article.

Nafie, the paper’s editor, denounced the French effort as “ideological terrorism” designed to “cripple the freedom of the press in Egypt and the Arab world,” reported the AP.

NEW YORK
Four of the largest U.S. fast-food chains were named last week in a class-action suit accusing the restaurants of negligently making and marketing unhealthy food to consumers for decades, thereby hiking obesity and disease rates.

The suit, filed by a 272-pound New York man, seeks unspecified damages against the fast-food chains, which he says deliberately hid caloric, fat, and salt content from consumers in order to sell more food.

“It’s a question of informing the consumers,” Samuel Hirsch, lead plaintiffs’ lawyer in the case, said last week. The suit names four chains: Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s.

“[The companies] profited enormously” by selling foods high in fat, salt, sugar, and cholesterol — despite scientific evidence linking such foods to higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, he added.

“Fast-food chains failed to disclose the contents in terms of calories, fat grams, and sodium. Even when posted, the information is not easily understandable to the public,” said Hirsch, according to a report from the Reuters news agency.

The National Restaurant Association last week railed against the suit, which it said “gives ‘frivolous’ a bad name.”

“This lawsuit, which solely makes restaurants responsible for obesity in America, swallows a simplistic notion” of responsibility for food choices, said Steven Anderson, president and CEO of the Washington-based association.

Last week’s lawsuit highlights growing concern over the rate of U.S. obesity, which kills an estimated 300,000 Americans each year and costs the nation $117 billion in health-related costs, according to ABC News.

More than 60 percent of U.S. adults are overweight and more than 25 percent are obese — weighing in at least 20 percent over their ideal weight, according to statistics cited by Reuters.

BERLIN
Two cigarette makers were sued last week in Germany for allegedly violating advertising restrictions — one manufacturer for allegedly appealing to young people, the other for purportedly dismissing the health threats posed by cigarettes.

The Federal Consumer Center Association (FCCA) says JT International, maker of Camel cigarettes, is using a billboard image of a woman who appears to be younger than 30, reported the Reuters news agency.

Such an image would violate a 1966 industry agreement that requires tobacco companies to make sure their models look mature, mandating specifically that they appear older than 30 to young people aged 14 to 21.

The FCCA says a recent survey of 4,000 young people found that most respondents said the model looked significantly younger than 30, Reuters reported.

British American Tobacco German was also sued last week by the FCCA, which alleges that the company is fraudulently and dangerously marketing cigarettes as a relatively harmless habit.

The FCCA complaint targets a cigarette advertisement featuring a plate of potato chips and the tag line, “Whether sugar, fat, alcohol, or nicotine, too much of anything is always unhealthy.”

A spokesman for the Cigarette Manufacturers’ Association said the complaints would be reviewed and the ads amended if necessary, noted Reuters.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

TORONTO
Pope John Paul II made his first public comment on the sexual abuses by Roman Catholic priests and brothers to 800,000 attendees at a mass in Toronto last week.

He stated that the sexual abuse scandals “fills us with a deep sense of sadness and shame.” However, to the applause of many in the audience, including senior members of the Church and the 200,000 international delegates at the World Youth Day Mass, the pontiff went on to urge the followers to “be close to and support” the vast majority of dedicated and generous priests whose lives were dedicated to serving and doing good.

However, some of the victims have criticized the pontiff for not going the extra step and apologizing outright to the victims of the sexual abuse.

The frail 82-year-old leader of the Catholic Church, whose health is failing, won many admirers in Canada with his determination to endure the long flight from Rome and the rigorous agenda of the World Youth Day activities in Canada, which was followed by visits to Guatemala and Mexico.

From Watson Wyatt:

“Worker trust and confidence in senior management have fallen over the past two years and, unless reversed, present a major threat to future corporate competitiveness, according to a soon-to-be released survey of nearly 13,000 workers conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

“Watson Wyatt’s ‘WorkUSA 2002′ survey — conducted earlier this year — found that fewer than two out of five (39 percent) employees trust senior leaders at U.S. companies. Moreover, there was a five-point drop from 2000 to 2002 in both the percentage of employees (45 percent) who say they have confidence in the job being done by senior management and the percentage of workers (63 percent) who believe their companies conduct business with honesty and integrity.

“‘Falling levels of employee trust are a major threat to future corporate competitiveness,’ says Ilene Gochman, Ph.D., Watson Wyatt’s national practice leader for organization measurement and author of the survey. ‘Unless Corporate America can resolve the crisis of confidence among its employees, it has little hope of restoring the trust and confidence of investors that is so crucial in these economic times.’

“Watson Wyatt has been conducting its ‘WorkUSA’ survey since 1987. The study is one of the largest and most current statistically representative surveys on the attitudes of U.S. workers. The 2002 survey includes responses from 12,750 workers at all job levels and in all major industries….

“‘Employee trust levels and corporate performance are closely linked. In fact, our survey found that the rate of three-year total returns to shareholders is almost three times higher at companies with high trust levels than at companies with low trust levels,’ she explains….”

RE: “Texas Textbook Battles Begin,” July 29.

Rushworth,

I wonder if anyone else caught the irony in the story on Texas and textbooks? I certainly raised my eyebrows when I read that Texas demanded that “textbooks promote democracy” … and then two paragraphs later saw that in determining which books would be allowed in state schools, “David Bradley, a conservative member of the Board of Education, told the Monitor, ‘It’s nice to be king’”!

– Alisdair Smith
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Dear Editor:

I’m glad to have discovered this Web site, glad to know that there is some global discourse about ethics. Just recently, because of the escalating rates of crime in the state where I live, the name of the law enforcement department was changed from the Police Service to the Police Force. As part of fast-tracking trainees to meet reasonable numbers of new police officers, the subject “ethics” was taken off of the curriculum at the police training academy.

Regards,
– Kathryn Pollard
Lismore, New South Wales, Australia

“Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

– Thomas Jefferson (3rd U.S. president, 1743-1826)