Ethic Soup

Has Saudi Arabia Beheaded Fawza Falih for 'Witchcraft?'

It's Halloween and I'm thinking about Fawza Falih. The last time there was word of her was in February. Since then nothing -- nothing that I can find in the news. A death penalty was imposed on this Saudi Arabian woman, illiterate and convicted of witchcraft.  Accused of being involved in supernatural occurrences, they said she bewitched a man when he suddenly became impotent. They talked about either beheading her or stoning her to death.

"The illiterate woman was detaind by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read," reported the BBC. 

After police interrogation, Falih admitted to having bewitching powers. Later she retracted her confession, saying it was made under duress.(I don't want to imagine what they must have done to her). But the strict interpretation of Wahhabi Islam claims the death penalty is needed to "protect the creed, souls and property of this country." In 1692, America had its Salem witch trials. Today, Saudi Arabia is still at it.

General Hospital Soap Opera Uses Photo of Murdered Boy as a Prop

  Shame on all y'all -- ABC, General Hospital's producers and the news media in general. And that includes bloggers. This story is sad in so many ways. In what ABC has called a "terrible error," the network's soap opera "General Hospital: Night Shift,"  used as a prop a photo of 6-year-old Christopher Barrios, a Georgia boy who was kidnapped, raped and murdered last year. That was in March 2007, but the nightmare lives on for his family.

ABC offered this apology:

"While the production team would never have knowingly chosen this particular photo, its use was a terrible error. We offer our deepest condolences to the Barrios family for their loss and our sincerest apologies for any pain caused by our mistake. In the coming weeks, SOAPnet will air a series of public service announcements in Christopher's honor, to raise awarness of missing and exploited children. Meanwhile, the episode is being edited to permanently remove the photo, and we have taken steps, including reviewing internal processes to determine how it happened in hopes of preventing this type of mistake from occurring again."

The bizarre slip-up is being called "indefensible," by the media, which has sensationalized the incident and I believe has been more unethical in its reporting than the original incident --  at least using the photo as a prop in the soap opera scene was apparently unintentional. The  following reports by the news media were planned with forethought and have been grossly unethical.

Demon or Disorder: Clergy Dismiss Mental Illness

      If you, or a member of your family, have a mental illness, don't count on getting understanding or support from your church pastor. Of course, many will try to help if you approach them for guidance; however, a whopping 32 to 40 percent of Christian ministers will dismiss your problem and say that you do not really have a mental illness. Your problem is solely "spiritual in nature," say approximately one-third of church clergy. This is hard to accept, horrible.

This is the very disturbing result of several recent studies headed by Matthew Stanford, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University in Texas. One study appears in the journal "Mental Health, Religion and Culture;" and the other appears in  the "Journal of Religion, Disability & Health." (See article in Baylor University's Lariat here.)

It gets even more disturbing. In one study of 293 Christians -- who had a diagnosed, serious mental illness -- 30 percent reported a negative interaction with the church. What does that mean? Their church either abandoned them, equated mental illness with the work of demons or suggested that the mental disorder was because of personal sin. How do YOU spell love and understanding? Don't forget, all of the participants in both studies were previously diagnosed (by a licensed mental health provider) as having a serious  mental illness -- such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, prior to approaching their local church for assistance, reports MSNBC .

The second study found that of 85 mentally ill Christians, 41.2 percent of them said that the church had dismissed the diagnosis.

A Memorial Mural for Cadavers: Anatomy of Giving

   On a wall inside the anatomy lab at Lincoln Memorial University's Debusk College of Osteopathic Medicine (Harrogate, Tenn.) is a mural, painted by first year medical student  Carlos Humberto Cabrera Jr. The anatomy lab is where medical students dissect cadavers. The mural is a memorial, honoring the cadavers, the people who donate their bodies so that medical students might learn anatomy. The mural is right there in the anatomy lab. It took Cabrera more than six months, including his spring break and summer vacation, to finish the mural.

ETHICS GONE RIGHT    

It's a wonderful story, a story of ethics gone right for a change. It reminded me of  something Greg Calhoun recently said in a post on his blog Be With Intention. He recalled the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail skit "Bring out yer dead!"  King Arthur rides through a plague-ravaged village where the Dead Collector is piling corpses on a wagon and crying out, "Bring out yer dead! Bring out yer dead!" One young villager wants to unload his old father, though the old man is still very much a  live and hollering "I'm not dead yet." The Dead Collector protests, "I cawn't take 'im like 'at!" When the youngster begs, "Isn't there something you can do?" the Dead Collector obliges by finishing the old geezer off with a blow to the head and stacks him on top of the corpse pile.

"This scene from the classic Monty Python comedy is so funny precisely because we know it is so wrong," wrote Calhoun. "The dead and dying should be honored, not heaped onto a pushcart."

The NFL, Drugs, Google and Media Myopia : The Bumetanide Story

  What's "bumetanide?" That's what I asked, when I saw it was at the top of Google's most searched keywords list today. Google said it was seeing "volcanic" action on the word "bumetanide." Holy cow, what is going on that's so important to so many ? This is a really strange story. I don't know why I'm surprised.

First a definition: Bumetanide is a diuretic drug, commonly used to control fluids in the treatment of heart and kidney disease. It decreases the amount of water retained in the body by increasing urination, causing the kidneys to get rid of unneeded water and salt from the body.

So what's the big story? Hold  onto your helmet! I found well over 300 news stories about New Orleans Saints veterans Deuce McAllister and Will Smith, both of whom are reported to have violated the NFL steroids policy. Now that's an ethics story in and of itself. But that's not this ethic story.

The football players tested positive for bumetanide, described by sports media as "a water pill" and "the weight-loss diuretic." Diuretics can be used as masking agents because they dilute the urine and result in lower levels of the banned substance being excreted from the body, reports the Associated Press,  adding: "That can make it more difficult to detected banned substances."

No, that's not the important story about bumetanide. Not in my opinion. While I found some 318 news stories about (more) NFL players caught in what may be steroid use, I found only one news article about how the bumetanide drug may help change the lives of up to two billion people around the world.

Medical School Names for Sale

  Everybody needs money, particularly today as the country's financial crisis has effectively dried up donations to philanthropic causes. But, is it ethical for medical schools to act like sports arenas? It appears that branding is the fund-raising du jour for medical schools that want millions. If you give it to them, they'll change their names and put yours up on their building. Yes, medical school names are for sale.

IS IT A GOOD IDEA?

That's the question asked by Dr. Jay S. Loeffler of Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Edward C. Halperin of the University of Louisville School of Medicine, in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). What prompted their commentary? The doctors said it was the disturbing recent news report that:

"Pressed to find new sources of cash, the University of Minnesota Medical School leaders are interested in selling the school's name in return for a big-time donation -- as much as $150 million...Would the University sell the medical school name to a drug company in return for a big donation? Would Minnesotans object to removing "Minnesota" from the school's name in exchange for cash? It is not clear."

Light Bulb Ethics: Save Energy, Save Money, Save the Climate

 The incandescent light bulb won't be around much longer. In just about a year, more than half a billion people in almost 30 nations around the globe will say goodbye to the old light bulb.  European Union Energy Ministers joined Australia, the Philippines and Cuba last week when it completed plans to make the sale of incandescent light bulbs illegal in Europe by 2010.

The massive light bulb switch is part of an ambitious energy policy to fight climate change. The U.S. plans to do the ethical and smart thing by joining them (now that we've admitted there is such a thing as climate change and that it's not good) by banning the incandescent light bulb beginning 2012 and phasing out through 2014.

The incandescent is an energy-inefficient light bulb and although its successors are more expensive initially, the more efficient lights will be cheaper in the long run as they use significantly less energy and last longer. Incandescents convert heat into light and are extremely lazy-- using only two percent of the electricity they consume and wasting the rest. When you think how lighting accounts for almost one quarter of the world's electricity use, the possible energy savings are massive.

Be a Freedom Writer: Help Free Political Prisoners in Malaysia

  Amnesty International Malaysia has played a role in freeing dozens of political prisoners by writing thousands of protest letters every year. Sadly, there are still dozens more being wrongfully imprisoned in Malaysia for their opinions who need protest letters written for them. To become a freedom writer, log onto http://www.aimalaysia.org/ and find out how you can help.

WHAT'S GOING ON IN MALAYSIA?

In a periodic review submitted to the United Nations, dated December 2008, Amnesty International describes the current status of human rights in Malaysia. It's horrible!

Today, almost ten years after the creation of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia Act 1999, the national human rights institution (NHRI) faces a possible status downgrade from "A" to "B" by the International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions. after failing to comply with the Paris Principles for an independent and effective NHRI. What does that mean? If downgraded, it will lose its right to participate in the regular sessions of the UN Human Rights Council and will be relegated as a non-voting member of the Asia Pacific Forum on Human Rights Institutions. Limited to merely submitting its opinions and reports to the government, the NHRI has no enforcement authority to protect human rights.

The Malaysian government routinely uses detention laws to deny individuals freedom from arbitrary detention, the right to a fair trial and other human rights. The government continues to use or threaten to use the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) against perceived critics of the government. The ISA allows the police to arrest people they believe have acted, or are "about to" or "likely to" act in a way that would threaten Malaysian security.

 It allows for detention without trial for up to two years, renewable indefinitely, without the detainee being charged with a crime or tried in a court of law. Why does this sound so familiar? It sounds like the United State's security laws against terrorism.

Election Day Trouble: Unreliable Voting Systems, Problems Across U.S.

  We're in trouble and it's too late to do anything about it. There's not any time to fix the unbelievable list of problems facing voters nationwide. Are we surprised? No. Here we are -- some have already started voting -- and we're going to have serious troubles in our country's most important election ever. The technology we'll be using to elect our next president will be a crucial factor, particularly if the election is close.

Only three of the six voting systems in place across our country are fairly reliable, according to an e-voting report issued last week by the security firm Fortify. Those three systems are hand-counted ballots, optical scan ballots and absentee ballots. Each of these lets voters verify the selections they've made before casting their ballots. Plus, ballots can be recounted by election officials, if needed. Considered tried-and-true systems, they are anticipated to be widely used in 31 states, producing about 60 percent of the ballots cast nationwide, according to the Pew Center on the States.

However, two technologies -- lever machines and punch cards, have glaring weaknesses but are only going to be used in a small number of instances, said a post in USA Today's Technology Live Blog. The blog reports that the sixth technology is "notoriously unreliable and will be in wide use." That is Direct Recording Electronic voting systems  -- "lightweight PCs running crudely-written software." With the DREs, there is no easy way for voters to go back and verify their votes. Even worse, the tallying function of these systems are prone to glitches and are easy to manipulate. Get this -- they leave no trace of a malfunction or a hack. How stupid are we? How much  longer are we going to let the foxes guard the hen house?

Yet Another Saudi Sheikh's Fatwa: Women Must Wear One-Eye Veils

  When will Saudi women stop turning a blind eye to these Saudi sheikh clerics who are issuing fatwa-after-fatwa and  keeping women on the bottom rung of humanity's ladder?  Perhaps when saying "No," doesn't mean injury and/or death. It was just about a month ago that a Saudi sheikh said that "both household mice and their cartoon counterparts must be killed," declaring Mickey Mouse satanic. At least that one took the pressure off women momentarily and, I'm sure they hoped, would show the world just how crazy these guys are.

Now, Sheikh Mohamed Al-Habdan has issued another decree while appearing on Al-Majd satellite channel. Women who wear the niqab (full face veil) are only allowed to show one eye, covering the other eye along with the rest of their bodies. Why's that? Why, the women will try to be seductive and put makeup on their eyes since that's all they are allowed to show. A fatwa on makeup just doesn't do the job. (Do you suppose the cleric sheikhs fear "makeup sex?") Sorry, a little humor takes the edge off my anger.

MOST DEPRIVED AND DEVOID OF RIGHTS

In the United Nation's annual report on the state of women in the Arab world, over the past five years, Saudi women have been ranked as the most deprived and devoid of rights in Muslim society, reported Ynet, Israel News.