‘I’m Dr. Cohen’: The powerful humanity of the Jewish hospital staff that treated Robert Bowers; The Washington Post, October 30, 2018

Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post; ‘I’m Dr. Cohen’: The powerful humanity of the Jewish hospital staff that treated Robert Bowers

"The man accused in the brutal killings of 11 people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh was taken to the hospital after he was apprehended to be treated for the injuries he suffered in a gunfight with the police.

In the emergency room when he arrived, he was shouting, “I want to kill all the Jews,” according to the hospital’s president.

If he only knew then about the identity of the team tasked with keeping him alive: At least three of the doctors and nurses who cared for Robert Bowers at the Allegheny General Hospital were Jewish, according to President Jeffrey K. Cohen.

“We’re here to take care of sick people,” Cohen, who is a member of the congregation where the massacre happened, said in an interview with ABC affiliate WTAE. “We’re not here to judge you. We’re not here to ask ’Do you have insurance?’ or ’Do you not have insurance?’ We’re here to take care of people that need our help.”"

Libraries are about democracy, not just books; The Age (Melbourne, Australia), October 9, 2018

Christie Nieman, The Age (Melbourne, Australia); Libraries are about democracy, not just books

[Kip Currier: This article provides a persuasive, nuanced first-hand account by a librarian in Victoria, Australia about the vital role of libraries in communities as incubators for democratic values like access to information, analog and digital literacy, and an informed, educated electorate.

It can be easy to talk about and wax eloquently about the importance of democracy--at least, in places where, thankfully, free speech enables that kind of discourse.

The harder job of walking the talk, in terms of public infrastructure development and sustainability, is what the author of this piece unpacks for us:

Informing, reminding, and inspiring people why democracy requires necessary investment--in the short-term and for the long-term public interest--for civil societies to take root and thrive. Investment in public interest-committed institutions like libraries. For the benefit of everyone.

As quantitative and qualitative data (see here and here) and experiential stories demonstrate time and time again, libraries are local community, regional, national, and transnational anchors and portals to the kinds of activities and values that are necessary for democracies to grow and flourish. For people of all walks of life.]

"Certainly, once upon a time, a public library was a collection of books. But it was never only that. The mission of a public library is, and always was, to allow whole community access to knowledge, information, literature, and cultural participation. Every single day, your public library aims to provide something necessary or enriching – for free – for you and every individual in its locality. It aims to do this even for those who never darken its door, just in case one day they do. A public library is an instrument of democracy. Its mission is access for all, no one left behind...

These days access and full participation is simply not possible without some level of digital literacy. Teaching this skill has become fundamental to the age-old library mission. Daily, I teach older people and new arrivals how to use email and show people from all walks of life how to scan their documents, search for jobs, submit online forms to Centrelink...

Not by mistake is "Libraries Change Lives" the name of the new Public Libraries Victoria Network campaign - a slogan for a collaborative effort to educate people about libraries and ensure they are well funded, now and far into the future.

Libraries need to be protected. By all of us, for each other. And and we need to remember that libraries are not just nice, they are necessary."

Iowa man burns children's books from public library to protest Orange City Pride; Des Moines Register, October 22, 2018

Shelby Fleig, Des Moines Register; Iowa man burns children's books from public library to protest Orange City Pride


[Kip Currier: The American Library Association's (ALA) Banned Books Week was last month. It's an annual event, started in 1982 by the late Judith Krug, a staunch intellectual freedom advocate, to raise awareness of the importance of intellectual freedom and efforts by some to ban books.

The theme for this year's event is "Banning Books Silences Stories". This Des Moines Register article and video about a man who videotaped himself burning several LGBTQ-themed books owned by a public library in Iowa is a tangible example of attempts to silence the stories of others.

Watch this 3 minute 2012 Banned Books Week video by veteran journalist Bill Moyers for a still-relevant response regarding, as Moyers puts it, "self-deputized vigilantes".]

"The Orange City Public Library said it's exploring legal options after a northwest Iowa man rented and then publicly burned several children's books Friday.

The second annual OC Pride kicked off Friday with a story time for kids, a schedule shows. About an hour before the event, Paul Dorr started a live Facebook video, in which he stood near the Prairie Winds Event Center. The 27-minute video ends with Dorr throwing at least four books with LGBTQ themes that he claimed he rented from the public library into a burning trash can."

National Conference on the First Amendment; Duquesne University, October 21 - October 22, 2018

"National Conference on the First Amendment

Sunday, October 21 - Monday, October 22, 2018
Duquesne University Power Center Ballroom

 

[Kip Currier: Just listened virtually (see the link at the bottom of this post!) to the National Conference on the First Amendment's Monday morning panels comprised of a diverse array of newspaper editors (New York Times, Washington Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), university presidents (Morehouse College, University of Chicago, University of Virginia), and other 1st Amendment and national security experts from government, industry, and the academy. Hearing the thoughts of these impressive thought leaders was enlightening, thought-provoking, AND energizing. I'll be blogging about some of the sessions in the near future. Hopefully, the videos of these sessions will be made available--and transcripts would be a great resource as well!]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

- The First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The National Conference on the First Amendment: Bedrock of American Freedoms will shine a light on the critical importance of the First Amendment in a free and democratic society, to open a dialogue with Americans about the First Amendment and its central role in maintaining the viability of our democratic institutions and to help diverse audiences recognize that we, as Americans, still share foundational values. At a time when incivility and disregard for foundational principles have become the norm in our society, all Americans—regardless of ideology or politics—can find common ground in a national celebration of the First Amendment.
This conference will devote attention to all aspects of our basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to peaceably assemble and to government petition. The conference also will cover modern technology, social media and more. With the help of some of the best minds in the country, the conference will challenge us to rediscover the central role that the First Amendment plays in our American democracy.
Speakers and panelists include nationally known experts in journalism, politics, law, higher education and civic advocacy. For complete details, see the conference agenda.

Live Webcast

In addition, the conference will be webcast live on Oct. 21-22 for those unable to attend in person."

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression; The Washington Post, October 17, 2018

Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post;

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression

 

"A note from Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor

I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.

I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.”

As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change."

The founder of Craigslist is funding a competition to make computer science more ethical; Quartz, October 10, 2018

Simone Stolzoff, Quartz; The founder of Craigslist is funding a competition to make computer science more ethical

"What have you been doing to help promote democracy recently?

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, has certainly been doing his part. His invention may have helped decimate classified-advertising revenue for print newspapers, but last month, he gave $20 million to a team of experienced journalists to investigate the power of Big Tech. In June, he gave $20 million to the CUNY journalism program, so the next generation of journalists can do the same. And today (Oct. 10), he announced he’s helping to fund a new competition called The Responsible Computer Science Challenge to incorporate more ethical training into undergraduate computer science curricula.

The initiative, which was incubated by Omidyar Network, and is also backed by Mozilla, and Schmidt Futures, is soliciting proposals from professors and graduate students about how to make ethics a central part of a software engineer’s education. A panel of independent judges will award up to $3.5 million in prizes to the winners.

The competition couldn’t come at a better time."

Interview: 'Trump doesn't measure up': Doris Kearns Goodwin on leadership; The Guardian, October 7, 2018

David Smith, The Guardian; Interview: 'Trump doesn't measure up': Doris Kearns Goodwin on leadership

"Now she has delivered a book called Leadership in Turbulent Times. It is not, as the title implies, an opportunistic entry into the ever-expanding Trump canon. She began work on it five years ago, perhaps because a historian’s sixth sense told her leadership, or the lack of it, would become the story behind the story.

The book constructs Goodwin’s own version of Mount Rushmore by examining four presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. She considers what lessons they offer for transformational crisis management, turnaround and visionary leadership, but sugars the pill with telling details and funny anecdotes...

Having made the study of presidents her life’s work, does she think leaders are born or made?

“I would say mostly made,” Goodwin says. “Does the man make the times or the times make the man? It’s a mixture. I think you are born with certain qualities, of intelligence probably, memory and maybe even empathy. Some people, like Lincoln, were born with empathy. It was just a natural part of his temperament, and temperament may be inborn too: the way you look at the world and whether you’re optimistic or you’re pessimistic."
 

Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.; The Washington Post, October 7, 2018

David Ignatius, The Washington Post; Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.

[Kip Currier: As I've mentioned to a few people lately--including my book editor, as I finish up a chapter on truth for my ethics textbook--this is a particularly challenging time to tackle the topics of truth, facts, news, and information assessment. The example of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi--"disappeared" and presumed killed--painfully demonstrates both the importance of and potentially deadly stakes for those committed to promoting freedom of expression and truth telling, in the furtherance of human rights, equality, and democratic values.]

"George Orwell titled a regular column he wrote for a British newspaper in the mid-1940s “As I Please.” Meaning that he would write exactly what he believed. My Saudi colleague Jamal Khashoggi has always had that same insistent passion for telling the truth about his country, no matter what.

Khashoggi’s fate is unknown as I write, but his colleagues at The Post and friends around the world fear that he was murdered after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday...

Khashogggi [sic] understood that he could keep his mouth shut and stay safe, because he had so many friends in the royal family. But it simply wasn’t in him.

Khashoggi wrote a column for the Post last year in which he described seeing some of his friends arrested and struggling with his conscience. “I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family. I have made a different choice now,” he wrote. He had made a decisive break with Mohammed bin Salman , choosing exile and honesty in his writings. His simple four-word explanation: “We Saudis deserve better.”"

Why you need a code of ethics (and how to build one that sticks); CIO, September 17, 2018

Josh Fruhlinger, CIO; Why you need a code of ethics (and how to build one that sticks)

"Importance of a code of ethics

Most of us probably think of ourselves as ethical people. But within organizations built to maximize profits, many seemingly inevitably drift towards more dubious behavior, especially when it comes to user personal data. "More companies than not are collecting data just for the sake of collecting data, without having any reason as to why or what to do with it," says Philip Jones, a GDPR regulatory compliance expert at Capgemini. "Although this is an expensive and unethical approach, most businesses don’t think twice about it. I view this approach as one of the highest risks to companies today, because they have no clue where, how long, or how accurate much of their private data is on consumers."

This is the sort of organizational ethical drift that can arise in the absence of clear ethical guidelines—and it's the sort of drift that laws like the GDPR, the EU's stringent new framework for how companies must handle customer data, are meant to counter."