Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Early this morning I saw this in the UK papers (and Malta’s, I think):
NHS hospitals are using end-of-life care to help elderly patients to die because they are difficult to look after and take up valuable beds, a top doctor has warned.
He talks about removing a “patient from the LCP despite significant resistance.”
Oh, you don’t know about LCP? Read it all
Philosopher Richard Rorty allegedly admits that the secular liberal has no answer for that.
But now I’m ahead of myself.
David Brooks titled his September 12 New York Times column thus: If It Feels Right…
And here you have the first and third sentences of his piece:
During the summer of 2008, the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith led a research team that conducted in-depth interviews with 230 young adults from across America. […] Smith and company asked about the young people’s moral lives, and the results are depressing.
OK. So it’s only 230 young folks out of million? But even that few people in the 18-23 age range ought to know better. (Surely they didn’t pull a Kinsey and survey Gutter Dwellers.) Read it all
Well, so says this outfit:
| The Ethisphere Institute on Monday named 99 companies it says are the world’s most ethical, its third annual listing designed to encourage ethical practices within the global business community.
The 99 companies, which include Honeywell International Inc, Nike Inc, Patagonia, BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Johnson Controls Inc and HSBC Holdings PLC, come from 35 different industries. […] This year’s group features 22 first-time recipients including Dell Inc, Thomson Reuters Corp, Best Buy Co Inc and T-Mobile International AG & Co KG. Of the companies on the list, 44 are on it for the third time. They include General Electric Co, American Express Co, PepsiCo Inc, McDonald’s Corp, Starbucks Corp and IKEA AB. |
Here’s an interesting piece I read earlier today: Watch Out.
“I was the third boy in line. Once everyone was in place he started going through the pockets of every boy, and he found the watch in mine. I had been hoping against hope that he wouldn’t find it, as I planned to return it to Naftali after school. However, now the rebbi had the culprit. I was shaking as I waited for him to shout at me, or express glee that he found it.
“Instead he continued checking every single boy! When he finished searching the last boy, he said, ‘You all can go back to your seats. I have the watch.’
“As I walked back to my seat I had to hold myself back from crying. I understood what the rebbi did and how he saved me from being embarrassed. He had continued the search so no one could figure out who had taken the watch. As we sat down he didn’t even look my way so no one could possibly have any inkling who the guilty party was. He resumed teaching. I decided then and there that someday I would like to be like him.”
What do you think of the rebbi’s approach?
Suppose I’m at WalMart and see an item with a price that’s so “too good to be true” that it must be a mistake. Say a normally $300 digital camera for $30. So I attempt to purchase it for $30…and succeed.
What should I do in such a case?
What say you?
And why?
Christian group blamed for mumps outbreak
| Conservative Christians who refuse vaccinations have been linked to an outbreak of mumps in British Columbia. The controversy has raised ethical issues, and sparked debate over the limits of religious rights.
Douglas Todd, religion writer for The Vancouver Sun, has covered the story extensively. Todd cited medical ethicists who questioned the Christian group’s position. Alister Browne, director of ethics and law at the University of British Columbia medical school, said, “I don’t think this issue is a small matter.” He added that the ethical importance of a society protecting the health of children and others against infectious disease must be weighed against a person’s right to religious freedom, and the level of risk to others when immunizations are refused. Michael McDonald, a professor in the Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia, went further. He argued that adults in the Chilliwack community may be ethically required to accept vaccinations to protect their children and members of the larger society, since the health and safety of others — particularly children — is a justified “limit to religious freedom.” |
Do you agree?
And another less PC question: If these were Muslims, would Mr. McDonald say the same thing?
I’m sure you don’t know the answer to the second question. But surely you know the answer to the first.