Ethics Headlines is an
ethics-in-the-news clipping file published each Friday by Greg
Feldmeth, a
high school teacher at Polytechnic
School
in Pasadena, California. It contains news items from the media in the
past week that deal with some area of ethical inquiry.
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Ethics
Headlines in the subject line. If you know of others
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This week's headlines--click on the headline to read the full article
- Cartoons ignite cultural combat in Denmark. When the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad - including one in which he is shown wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse - it expected a strong reaction in this country of 5.4 million people. But the paper was unprepared for the global furor inspired by the cartoons, which provoked demonstrations in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, death threats against the artists, condemnation from 11 Muslim countries and a rebuke from the United Nations.
- Chief among the silliness. The University of Illinois must soon decide whether, and if so how, to fight an exceedingly silly edict from the NCAA. That organization's primary function is to require college athletics to be no more crassly exploitative and commercial than is absolutely necessary. But now the NCAA is going to police cultural sensitivity, as it understands that. Hence the decision to declare Chief Illiniwek "hostile and abusive" to Native Americans.
- Is Christianity a casualty of war? Recently, I sat in dismay as I
watched a television show that featured a prominent Christian author
defending the use of torture in the war against terrorism. I was
outraged that this man could try to make a case for followers of Jesus
condoning such an immoral practice. I shared my feelings with a group
of fellow Evangelicals and was stunned when the consensus that emerged
from this group of Christians was in agreement with this author.
- Olesker out. Columnist Michael Olesker has resigned two weeks before his 30th anniversary with The (Baltimore) Sun amid allegations of plagiarism, after an alternative weekly found instances in which he used the work of other journalists without attribution.
- The clay feet of
liberal saints. The
hottest voice of Hollywood's
conscience, George Clooney, recently declared, "Yes, I'm a liberal, and
I'm sick of it being a bad word. I don't know at what time in history
liberals have stood on the wrong side of social issues." I'd forgotten
about this intriguingly categorical declaration until I
read in this newspaper a fascinating story about how the father of
journalistic muckraking, Upton Sinclair, not only knew that Nicola
Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty but withheld his information
for the good of the "movement," for his personal safety and his
professional success.