Ethics Newsline®

Like most graduations, the commencement ceremony for the Coast Guard’s Chief Petty Officer Academy a few weeks ago was a fine balance of pomp and conviviality. It was a white-tableclothed, ice-sculptured affair, held in a hotel ballroom near the campus of the Coast Guard Training Center in Petaluma, California. For the 63 chiefs and their families, it was an evening awash with accomplishment, levity, and relief. They and their faculty were dressed to the nines — so much brass and braid that I remarked to the group (as their commencement speaker) that I’d never before donned a tuxedo and felt underdressed.

But the formal dress had point. It reflected the evening’s sober symbolism — including a small table meticulously set with stemware, silver, and a single white candle. Its lone chair backed up against the podium, facing the audience. Before the meal began, a ship’s bell solemnly tolled eleven as an officer lit the candle before the hushed crowd. The table honored those who had lost their lives in service to the Coast Guard. The chair sat empty all evening.

I was reminded of that image this past weekend as the college commencement season arrived and the Memorial Day weekend approached. In the United States, the holiday once called Decoration Day — after the tradition of decorating the graves of the war dead — has since 1868 been celebrated on May 30. In practice, however, it’s always observed on the last Monday of May, creating a long weekend even when (unlike this year) the two dates are separate. Here in Lincolnville, Maine, we still make some attempt at ceremony despite the vacation atmosphere. The high-school band still marches. Aging veterans still turn out in uniform. Local luminaries still give orations over slightly tinny sound systems. And the parade still stops to honor the wooden signboard listing the town’s war dead. These days, however, there’s not much of a crowd. For that, you want to head east along Route 1 to the local garden center, where a different kind of signboard advertises the annual start-of-the-season Memorial Day sale on shrubs, trees, and perennials.

It’s an odd quirk of the calendar, this blending of commencement and summertime and remembrance. In one intense season of ceremony, we send forth the young, salute the dead, and celebrate the coming solstice. Is this right? In this particularly American blend of the commercial, the educational, and the military, are we dishonoring those who went before us? Are we at risk of discounting the sacrifices that helped defend the physical, mental, and moral infrastructure we’ve inherited?

Such questions underlie “In Flanders Fields,” the 1915 poem by the Canadian surgeon John McCrae still recited regularly at remembrance ceremonies. Easily the most popular poem to come out of World War I, it was translated widely, memorized by school children, and responsible for the red lapel poppies commemorating the day — becoming to Memorial Day nearly what “Jingle Bells” became to Christmas:

Do we break faith by turning this holiday into a long weekend and a day of sales? In 2000, President Clinton introduced a “National Moment of Remembrance,” asking the public voluntarily “to pause for one minute at 3:00 P.M. (local time) on Memorial Day to remember and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many to provide freedom for all.” A year earlier, bills were introduced in the Senate and the House to require Memorial Day to be celebrated only on May 30, rather than on the last Monday of May — removing its mini-vacation status, in hopes of concentrating attention on its purposes rather than on the distractions of the coming summer. Not surprisingly, both bills have languished. Asking for voluntary participation from those who care is one thing. Requiring the public and the marketplace to surrender a well-established holiday is quite another.

And perhaps not necessary. Sitting with my Coast Guard companions that evening, I found myself imagining the occupant of that empty chair. What would he or she have wanted? Certainly to be honored, thanked, admired for dedication. But wouldn’t he or she also have taken delight in the camaraderie, the playfulness, the wit? Wouldn’t there have been some deep satisfaction in the sight of new officers joining the leadership ranks? Wouldn’t it have mattered to see a spirited appreciation of what he or she died for — the values underlying the organization, the recognition of the risks involved, and the ongoing commitment to purpose?

Those three things — values, risks, and commitment — define moral courage. We need to celebrate that courage — not as a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence by those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, but as a constant, rhythmic presence in life, integrated into the laughter and labor of all human experience. Memorial Day doesn’t ask us to surrender that laughter. It doesn’t take away summertime or the commencement of new careers for the young. It simply asks us to carry forward the torch of goodness for which others died — and to have, through living, the moral courage for which they sacrificed.

©2005 Institute for Global Ethics

“I despised what he had done to me…. [But] you can’t throw a human being away. When you see someone you have lived with, and you are so angry with them, you have to come to terms with yourself and get rid of the bitterness. Not for their sake, but for your own.”

– Millie Hayes, 67, a Louisiana antiques shop owner, talking with the New York Times about her decision to serve as caregiver for her ex-husband, a man described as cruel and controlling, as his health deteriorated due to Alzheimer’s. As the U.S. population ages, the Times says healthcare workers are seeing a growing trend: “In scenes exhibiting a vivid range of feelings — acrimony, compassion, rekindled love, abiding friendship — sick and dying Americans are being cared for by former spouses.” (“Past Divorce, Compassion at the End,” New York Times, May 19)

NEW YORK
Seeking to secure military bases abroad and reward U.S. allies in the “war on terror,” the United States is supplying weapons to nations deemed undemocratic and oppressive by its own State Department, a group studying arms sales warned last week.

The study by the World Policy Institute (WPI) examined U.S. arms sales in 2003 — the last year for which complete information reportedly is available — calling particular attention to arms sales to developing nations.

Of the top 25 recipients of U.S. arms transfers in the developing world, 13 were classified by the State Department as undemocratic nations where “citizens do not have the right to change their own government.” Twenty of the top 25 were either undemocratic or had records of major human rights abuses, reported the WPI.

Top recipients included Saudi Arabia ($1.1 billion), Egypt ($1.0 billion), Kuwait ($153 million), the United Arab Emirates ($110 million), and Uzbekistan ($33 million).

While supplying arms to such nations may serve U.S. strategic interests in the short run, the report called for a reconsideration of that approach in light of the threat such nations may one day pose, noted the Reuters news agency.

“Billions of U.S. arms sales to Afghanistan in the 1980s ended up empowering Islamic fundamentalist fighters across the globe,” warned report co-author William Hartung. “Our current policy of arming unstable regimes could have similarly disastrous consequences, with U.S.-supplied weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, insurgents, or hostile governments.”

“Perhaps no single policy is more at odds with President Bush’s pledge to ‘end tyranny in our world’ than the United States’ role as the world’s leading arms exporting nation,” added co-author Frida Berrigan.

WASHINGTON
Amnesty International last week lashed out at the United States over its treatment of terrorism detainees and prisoners, saying U.S. efforts to subvert international treaties against torture have made the world a more dangerous place.

Amnesty accused the U.S. government of abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, protecting high-ranking officials implicated in abusive policies, denying legal resources to detainees, and establishing a confinement system in Cuba that has become “the gulag of our times.”

The United States also “has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques, the practice of holding ‘ghost detainees,’ and the ‘rendering’ or handing over of prisoners to third countries known to practice torture,” Amnesty’s secretary general, Irene Khan, said last week.

The charge of “ghost detainees” refers to allegations that the U.S. keeps some prisoners incommunicado and does not acknowledge their existence.

Amnesty’s “strong language” was deliberately chosen to underscore deep concern that “the United States has betrayed a very fundamental principle that this country stands for,” William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International’s U.S. operations, told the New York Times.

While the United States was not the worst human rights offender, it was the most powerful and the most watched, making its failures more damaging to the safety of prisoners around the world, the group said.

“When the U.S. government calls upon foreign leaders to bring to justice those who commit or authorize human rights violations in their own countries, why should those foreign leaders listen?” said Schulz. “And if the U.S. government does not abide by the same standards of justice, what shred of moral authority will we retain to pressure other governments to diminish abuses?”

The 2004 report also chronicled abuses by other nations, criticizing both Israel and Palestine for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” by killing civilians in tit-for-tat attacks, noted the BBC.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan last week dismissed Amnesty’s accusations as “ridiculous and unsupported by the facts,” saying the U.S. government holds “people accountable when there’s abuse. We take steps to prevent it from happening again. And we do so in a very public way….”

AUSTIN, Texas
A Texas political action committee (PAC) established by House Majority Leader Tom Delay violated campaign finance laws by failing to report nearly $700,000 in donations used to elect Republican candidates, a state judge ruled last week.

Texans for a Republican Majority failed to accurately report $684,507 in donations from corporations and other donors in 2002, state District Judge Joseph Hart ruled last week in a civil suit filed by five Democrats.

Bill Ceverha, the treasurer of Texans for a Republican Majority, was ordered to pay $196,660 in civil penalties to the plaintiffs, all of whom were ousted in 2002 after fierce campaigning by candidates using money from the PAC.

Plaintiffs charged the PAC with using illegal financing tactics that allowed Republicans to win the elections, redraw Texas districts, and ultimately swing the balance in the U.S. House of Representatives further to the GOP.

Last week, Judge Hart ruled that Texans for a Republican Majority illegally failed to disclose that it used the donations to fund GOP campaigns, not to pay for administrative costs as the group had claimed.

Fining the group for how it reported the donations, Hart said the separate issue of whether the donations were illegal would be answered in a separate criminal trial, noted the New York Times.

That related case, which includes charges against three of DeLay’s closest associates as well as at least four corporations, is under way.

In other news, Tom DeLay’s chief fundraising group, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), last week said it has revised all campaign reports for 2001 and 2002 following findings of inappropriate accounting.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) said legal strictures barred it from disclosing details of why it reviewed ARMPAC’s records.

In a 2002 audit that found improprieties in the PAC of now-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), the FEC said such inquiries generally are ordered only “when a committee appears not to have met the threshold requirements for substantial compliance,” according to the Times.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri
Seven of 10 teachers in a small Missouri school district quit their jobs last week to show support for a colleague who was fired after protesting the punishment of a fourth-grader as unsafe.

Christa Price, who earned exemplary reviews during her four years of teaching, was fired for insubordination by Dan Doerhoff, school principal and district superintendent of East Lynne School District in Cass County.

Doerhoff reportedly was angry with Price because she challenged his decision to punish an 11-year-old girl by making her pick up rocks in a roadside playground monitored only by a security camera.

Price said she believed the punishment to be unsafe and asked Doerhoff to reconsider. When he refused, she spent her free period helping the girl pick up rocks in the playground, reported the Kansas City Star.

As the girl’s punishment continued over the next day, other teachers also spent time watching over the student. “Somebody could have nabbed her in 10 seconds,” complained teacher Jenny Neeman.

Neeman was among the seven teachers who quit last week to protest the firing of Christa Price.

“If a teacher who advocates on behalf of safety of a student is not fit to be a teacher at East Lynne or anywhere in Missouri according to this administration, then none of us are fit to teach at East Lynne,” they said in a statement.

Doerhoff said he will no longer impose a rock-picking punishment on students, but stands by his initial decision, noting that it was an alternative punishment to suspension. The girl was punished for not doing her schoolwork, according to press reports.

Doerhoff also refused to sign the certification renewal needed by Christa Price, blocking her from other teaching jobs, noted the Associated Press.

Jim Morris, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said a department official has offered to help Price with the certification issue, according to the AP.

NEW YORK
Citing a federal review of disclosure data, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) last week accused three of the country’s leading drug companies of not providing enough information about their clinical trials.

NEJM editor Dr. Jeffrey Drazen took aim at GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Pfizer, saying the three firms were not disclosing enough data in a federal database designed to improve transparency.

That database, administered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was set up last year to track data on drug tests after manufacturers were accused of suppressing troubling data on marketed drugs.

Dr. Deborah Zarin of the NIH recently reviewed the database on behalf of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which has warned drug makers that its members — including the NEJM — will refuse to publish studies on drugs not transparently tracked in the database. They want more data on such details as who is funding the research, what the specific study is meant to investigate, and the size of the sample population.

Drazen last week said three firms were lagging on supplying data as basic as the tested drugs’ actual names — a problem 90 percent of the time with Merck, 53 percent with Glaxo, and 36 percent with Pfizer.

Two other firms — Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb — fared much better, providing the drug’s distinctive — and therefore trackable — names 95 percent of the time, reported the Associated Press.

Merck spokeswoman Janet Skidmore last week denied falling short, saying her firm has “done everything we can to expedite medical information and enhance transparency.”

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors is demanding 20 items of information for each clinical trial. Companies that fail to meet the demand for trials starting after July 1 will have their studies refused for publication.

INDIANAPOLIS
Medical equipment maker Guidant Corp. last week disclosed that one of its surgically implanted defibrillators contained a flaw that could cause the device to malfunction — news the company had known about for three years.

Guidant said it corrected the flaw in 2002 but never went public with the problem, leaving 37,000 unfixed units on the market without warning doctors or their patients about the possible malfunction.

One of those units short-circuited and failed to revive 21-year-old college student Joshua Oukrop when he went into cardiac arrest in March, reported the New York Times.

While Guidant admitted the problem to the dead man’s doctors, it declined to disclose the problem to other users until it learned that the New York Times was going to publish the fact, according to press reports.

Guidant last week defended its decision, saying the internal heart defibrillator in question — the Ventak Prizm 2 Model 1861 — had a strong track record, with only 26 known malfunctions among the 37,000 units manufactured before the fix. Of known problems, only the March incident was involved in a death.

Saying the costly process of surgical replacement carried medical risks for patients, Guidant said it believed the best course would be to leave the possibly faulty defibrillators quietly in place.

Last week, Guidant came under some heat for that decision, with Oukrop’s father and others saying that decision should have been left to doctors and patients whose lives depend on the device, not to the company.

“At the end of the day, you have to come down on the side of full disclosure,” Dr. David Cannom, who sits on Guidant’s board of outside medical advisers, told the Times.

NAROK, Kenya
Kenya’s president last week sacked a senior prosecutor for dismissing murder charges against a British aristocrat accused of killing a Maasai game warden investigating poaching.

Philip Murgor, who was fired from his post as Kenya’s director of public prosecutions, had dismissed murder charges against Thomas Cholmondeley, saying there was insufficient evidence to pursue the case.

Murgor’s decision enraged local Maasai leaders, who accused Murgor of skewing the justice system to help Cholmondeley, the great-grandson of one of Kenya’s most prominent British settlers, reported the Associated Press.

Cholmondeley, whose sprawling ranch was under investigation by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) for illegal trade, said he killed the KWS warden after mistaking him for a thief, claiming the killing was a matter of self-defense.

After Murgor dropped all charges and released Cholmondeley from jail, Maasai leaders threatened to besiege Cholmondeley’s game ranch for a demonstration.

“Murgor had to go because he acted unprofessionally when handling the case,” a senior government official told the Agence France-Presse last week.

After Murgor’s firing, the Maasai said they would postpone the demonstrations to give the government two weeks to re-arrest Cholmondeley and charge him for murder, noted the AFP.

An inquest into the murder is scheduled to begin June 6.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

TORONTO
A geologist at the center of one of Canada’s biggest financial scandals, the fraudulent massive gold find by the former Canadian mining company Bre-X, may have faked his own death, according to press reports.

Michael de Guzman, who was thought to committed suicide by jumping into an Indonesian jungle from a helicopter eight years ago, has sent $25,000 to his widow according to a statement made by Mrs. Genie de Guzman to a Singapore newspaper.

Mrs. Guzman stated that the money was drawn from a Brazilian branch of the American Citibank financial group three months ago.

A body was found in the Indonesian jungle eight years ago, but without definitive DNA proof that it was that of Michael de Guzman, the body was later cremated.

After the enormous fraud was discovered, suspicion focused on Mr. Guzman as the person who had tampered with the mining samples that indicated a major gold find that turned out to be the largest mining scandal in Canada.

From the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania:

“The American public disapproves only narrowly of partisan journalism, splits about evenly on whether news organizations usually get their facts straight, and narrowly accepts the idea that the government can limit the right of the press to report a story, according to a national survey conducted for the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.

“But journalists, including reporters, editors, producers, news executives, and owners, were also surveyed for the study which measured the divide between those who work in the news media and those who consume it. They heartily disagreed with the public on all those issues and many others.

“‘This study reveals a worrisome divide between the public’s view of journalism and journalists’ own views of their work. If journalists do indeed believe that what they do is valuable, fair, and ethically sound, it’s past time they began to put that case more effectively to the public,’ noted Geneva Overholser, co-editor of a new Oxford University Press book, The Press.

“Sixteen percent of the 673 journalists who were polled and 43 percent of the 1,500 members of the public surveyed said it was ‘a good thing if some news organizations have a decidedly political point of view in their coverage of the news.’ Eighty percent of journalists and 53 percent of the public said it was a ‘bad thing.’

“Eighty-six percent of journalists but only 45 percent of the public said news organizations generally ‘get their facts straight.’ But 48 percent of the public and only 11 percent of journalists said news organizations were ‘often inaccurate.’ When serious mistakes are made, 74 percent of the journalists said news organizations quickly report the error, but only 30 percent of the public said they do. In the public, 24 percent said news organizations try to ignore errors and 41 percent said they try to cover them up.

“‘The public perception that journalism is often inaccurate should raise alarm in the journalistic community. Confidence in the press is built on the belief that fact is reliably reported,’ said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, co-editor of The Press….

“Asked if the government ‘has the right to limit the right of the press to report a story,’ 44 percent of journalists said ‘never,’ 48 percent said ‘rarely,’ and 6 percent said ’sometimes.’ Among the public, just 29 percent said ‘never,’ 17 percent said ‘rarely,’ 37 percent said ’sometimes,’ and 14 percent said ‘always.’

“Some of these and other differences appeared to reflect the fact that the media sample, with a median experience level of 23 years, is distinctly more liberal than the public in general, measured by a separate poll of 1,500 adults. Thirty-one percent of those in the journalists’ sample called themselves liberal, 49 percent said they were moderates and just nine percent said they were conservatives. In the public generally, 24 percent said they were liberal, 33 percent moderate, and 38 percent conservative….

“The survey revealed differences among conservative journalists and conservatives in the public at large, as well. For example, among conservatives in the general public, 21 percent said the government never had the right to halt reporting and 15 percent said rarely. But among conservative journalists, 32 percent said ‘never’ and 54 percent said ‘rarely.’…

“The public also rated the ethics of journalists well below that of teachers, but above that of government officials, lawyers, and politicians. Seventy-four percent of the public said journalists’ ethics were good. Eighty-nine percent rated teachers’ ethics good, 54 percent rated the ethics or government officials or lawyers good, and 43 percent rated those of politicians good.

“But 95 percent of journalists ranked their trade’s ethics as good; 32 percent said ‘very good,’ a rating given by only 7 percent of the public….

“Besides accuracy, the survey measured many areas of public distrust of news organizations. Journalists shared many of their criticisms, though rarely with the same intensity. For example, 79 percent of the public said they believed ‘a media company that receives substantial advertising revenue from a company would hesitate to report negative stories about that company.’ The issue was put somewhat differently to journalists, but 33 percent said that to either a great extent or a moderate extent, ‘media organizations either intentionally or unintentionally avoid news stories that are potentially unfavorable to major advertisers.’ But 47 percent of journalists said the same of unfavorable stories about their company’s owners.

“Both journalists and the public gave positive ratings to how the New York Times and CBS News handled recent reporting scandals, although many said they had not heard or read about those events….”

“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”

– Thomas Paine (U.S. political philosopher and author, 1737-1809)

As the United States struggles with its global reputation in the wake of a Newsweek article that inflamed Muslim sentiments, it’s worth asking how capable we are of foreseeing ethical crises.

First, some context. Looked at from overseas, the United States falls victim to a pair of stereotypes: as a land of limitless promise, and as a place of persistent Puritanism. The first view arises historically from an apparently endless frontier, shaping the American sense of life as perpetually rich with possibilities and of the future as a friendly place. The second view reflects the religious roots of the European settlers, who founded a nation on the idea that the greatest happiness for all lies in promoting the moral lives of individuals.

Taken to extremes, these twin characteristics produce a United States that the cynics love to hate, where an impudent moralizing is wedded to an imprudent optimism. Taken in moderation, however, these characteristics help explain why on one hand Americans are so willing to experiment, to probe the future, and to push the limits — and, on the other, why the issues of character, integrity, and ethics are increasingly of such great concern.

Surprisingly, the United States hasn’t yet braided these twin strands together. For a people so fascinated by the future — from sci-fi movies and hurricane patterns to market forecasts and revenue projections — we’re surprisingly inept at foreseeing ethical challenges. Despite having an educational system well ahead of other nations in the fields of both future studies and practical ethics, we have yet to apply the former to the latter.

Yet the dangers of a failure of ethical foresight are all around us. Consider, for example, a single sentence by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”

You can be forgiven for thinking that this sentence applies to Newsweek magazine’s recent minuet. Such a dark threat seems appropriate from a congressman who might well be outraged about the magazine’s brief item mistakenly accusing interrogators at Guantánamo Bay of flushing a Koran down a toilet to unnerve Muslim detainees. After all, the Newsweek story violates three powerful canons of journalism:

1. You don’t single-source a story, especially when

2. you aren’t willing to name your source, and when

3. your story has the potential to be immediately and seriously inflammatory.

To be sure, a case can be made that anonymous, one-source stories are sometimes important. But Newsweek’s defense, comparing its “Periscope” item with a story of a corporate whistle-blower, just doesn’t wash. Most whistle-blowers are on their way to going public, which Newsweek’s government source probably is not. And few corporate stories are blamed for impacting national security and producing deadly riots in foreign capitals.

The real problem, however, is the failure of ethical foresight — an unwillingness to look over the moral horizon and contemplate the damage that might be done by our ethical lapses. Had Newsweek’s editors done that, they might have seen that there was no compelling purpose (beyond their own pride in scooping the competition) in publishing the story immediately, rather than checking more sources and doing it later.

Given the public’s growing distrust in journalism, DeLay’s idea that “the men responsible for this” should “answer for their behavior” strikes a chord.

But wait: That’s not what DeLay was discussing. His words were aimed not at journalists but at judges. His threat was directed at members of the judiciary who had determined in March that the feeding tube of a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, Terri Schiavo, should be withdrawn in accordance with her earlier wishes. DeLay was not criticizing the journalists whose words may have left at least 16 dead during riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was criticizing judges — three of whom have now suffered deadly attacks by vengeful citizens in courtrooms in Chicago, Atlanta, and Tyler, Texas.

Last week, in a stirring statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Joan Lefkow argued that such “harsh rhetoric” from public figures (including members of Congress) “can only encourage those who are on the edge or on the fringe to exact revenge on a judge who displeases them.” She was speaking from the heart: In February, her husband and mother were killed in her Chicago home by an out-of-work electrician whose case against the government she had dismissed last year, and who was stalking her in revenge.

Journalists and members of Congress can, of course, try to hide behind the veil of deniability. No one can actually prove that DeLay’s words incited deadly attacks, or that Newsweek’s reporting provoked overseas riots. But that’s not the point. What’s missing is a culture of rhetorical responsibility among our thought-leaders. There needs to be a clear recognition that highly visible positions carry with them a requirement to assess the ethical consequences of one’s language. Justice Holmes’ famous dictum that “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic” reminds us that with the right of free speech comes the responsibility for its tempered use. Unless our leaders learn to contemplate the ethical impact of their words, it’s hard to see how they can help create a genuinely ethical future.

©2005 Institute for Global Ethics

“The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”

–U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), promising retribution against the judges who ruled against reinserting the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo earlier this spring.

* * *

“They’re destroying the fabric that holds our nation together. Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that’s held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.”

– U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson, criticizing the federal courts recently on ABC television

* * *

“We need your help in tempering the tone on the debates that concern the independence of the judiciary. I have come to know scores of judges during my 22 years as a magistrate judge, bankruptcy judge, and district judge. Whether a liberal or conservative, I have never encountered a judge in the federal judiciary who can remotely be described as posing a threat as Mr. Robertson said, ‘probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.’”

– U.S. federal judge Joan Lefkow, rebuking members of Congress and other public figures at a Senate hearing last week for using harsh rhetoric against members of the U.S. judiciary. Lefkow’s husband and mother were killed in February by an irate former plaintiff whose case she dismissed.

(All above from “From Chicago Judge, a Plea for Safety and Softer Words,” New York Times, May 19)

WASHINGTON
Newsweek magazine last week retracted a controversial story alleging abuse of the Koran by U.S. interrogators, saying their source could no longer confirm the story, leaving the magazine no choice but to backtrack.

The allegations first appeared in the magazine’s May 9 issue, which said that an upcoming military report was expected to charge that interrogators had flushed a Koran down a toilet to unnerve tight-lipped detainees.

The 10-sentence news blurb spread quickly in the Muslim world, fueling anger at U.S. forces already distrusted in the wake of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, reported the Associated Press.

Some sources blamed the Newsweek story for anti-U.S. rallies that erupted in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where more than 16 people were killed when protests turned violent. Others, including the senior commander in Afghanistan, blamed the protests on national politics, noted the New York Times.

Newsweek said that the story’s source — a “senior government official” who had been reliable in the past — told the magazine that a forthcoming report would document abuse of the Koran by military interrogators at Guantánamo Bay.

As Newsweek came under increasing fire for the story, the source backtracked, eventually saying he may have read about the charges somewhere other than in the expected report.

That lack of clarity required Newsweek to retract the story, said editor Mark Whitaker, who rejected charges that the magazine had used slack standards when publishing the material.

Whitaker noted that the original story had been read by two Defense Department officials, neither of whom challenged the allegations involving the Koran.

“There had been previous reports about the Koran being defiled, but they always seemed to be rumors or allegations made by sources without evidence,” Whitaker said. “The fact that a knowledgeable source within the U.S. government was telling us the government itself had knowledge of this was newsworthy.”

“We relied on sources we had every reason to trust and gave the Pentagon ample opportunity to comment,” Whitaker told the Washington Post.

The Pentagon said an internal investigation of the charges has found no evidence that U.S. interrogators have desecrated the Koran.

KUWAIT CITY
In a surprise move, the Kuwaiti National Assembly last week reversed course and granted full political rights to the country’s women, angering conservatives who said the move will damage the nation’s religious purity.

The unexpected vote to rewrite the country’s election laws comes only two weeks after parliament members had moved to restrict women’s suffrage, blocking them from taking part in city council elections.

Kuwait’s prime minister, Sheik Sabah al-Jaber al-Sabah, is believed to have forced the reform measure through the National Assembly ahead of a planned trip to Washington, noted the New York Times.

The country’s decision to grant suffrage rights to women brings Kuwait into line with other Arab countries that practice democracy. The lone hold-out is Saudi Arabia, according to a report from the Christian Science Monitor.

While last week’s reversal was welcomed as historic by many women, some were less enthusiastic, including a young Kuwaiti professional who worried that the vote could adversely impact women’s rights overall.

“The Bedouin have more wives” than do the educated, urban elite, she told the Monitor. “These women will vote on tribal lines and we’ll have more tribes in parliament.”

While conservative Islamic lawmakers were angry over last week’s move, they succeeded in amending the measure to require that “females abide by Islamic law” — language that has unclear ramifications, noted the Times.

While last week’s granting of suffrage rights was good news for many, the first time that Kuwaiti women will have the opportunity to vote and run for office will be the 2007 parliamentary elections, according to the Monitor.

BOSTON
Harvard University last week said it will invest at least $50 million over the next 10 years to bolster the role of women on its faculty, acknowledging that it was lagging in reforming a culture built to favor men.

The announcement follows months of internal arguments and debate over the role of women at Harvard, much of it prompted by a statement from President Lawrence Summers in January that the lack of women in the fields of science and engineering might be caused partially by “intrinsic aptitude.”

Summers’ comment caused a firestorm and sparked the formation of two task forces, which released their reports last week and called for a series of reforms to improve the numbers and security of female and minority faculty.

The two reports shared an introduction, which opened by noting, “In spite of more than three decades of concern, Harvard has made only limited progress in its efforts to create a genuinely diverse faculty.”

Last year, women received only four of the 32 tenure offers made by Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, its central body, reported the Associated Press. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a symbolic no-confidence vote in Summers in March.

Reports from the Associated Press and Boston Globe noted that Harvard has fallen behind other premier U.S. universities such as Duke and the MIT in conducting a thorough review of gender issues on campus.

Summers last week conceded as much, saying Harvard would adopt immediately some of the task forces’ recommendations — establishing a senior administrative post to promote faculty diversity, for example — and evaluate others for strategic implementation.

“The objective is not just (to put forward) a set of recommendations, but to bring about a set of very important cultural changes,” Summers told the Globe. ”Universities like Harvard were designed a long time ago by men and for men. To fully succeed on these issues, we’re going to have to address issues of culture.”

SEATTLE
Saying a better example needs to be set, 141 of the nation’s mayors have agreed to meet the demands of the Kyoto treaty on global warming, urging the Bush administration to change course and follow suit.

The mayors say they will adhere to Kyoto’s call — reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels within seven years — due to the threats that global warming poses to their citizens, environment, and economies.

The Kyoto protocol, rejected by the Bush administration as flawed, took effect last February after Russia tipped the balance back in its favor, saying it would sign on to the deal, which aims to halt the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming by requiring developed nations to cut their emissions.

The United States is the world’s largest producer of such emissions — a fact that compelled Seattle Mayor Greg Nickles to say he would not sit on the sidelines as global warming threatened to dry up needed rains and nearby glaciers that provide Seattle’s drinking water.

Nickles said he would answer Kyoto’s challenge and asked other mayors to do the same. Last week, he said 141 mayors from both political parties have joined the effort, representing more than 30 million people in 35 states, reported the Associated Press.

Participating cities include Los Angeles, New York City, Salt Lake City, and New Orleans, which have adopted tactics that include buying wind power and switching municipal auto fleets to hybrid technology, reported the New York Times.

While the joint action may have some small environmental effects, its value also lies in its symbolic challenge to the federal government’s approach to climate change, Nathan Mantua, assistant director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington, told the Times.

“It is clearly a politically significant step in the right direction,” Dr. Mantua said.