Ethic Soup

Ex-Klan Wizard David Duke Thrown Out by Czechs for Denying Holocaust

  DAVID DUKE, former Grand Wizard of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, is 59 now and still at it. Just because you age doesn't make you a better human being. The notorious white supremacist, who once held a seat for Louisiana in the House of Representatives and made a bid for the U.S. Presidency, is in the Czech Republic today. Not for long however. He's been ordered to leave the country, reports the BBC.  

DUKE ARRESTED, THEN KICKED OUT

Apparently invited by a local Czech far-right (neo-Nazi) group, Duke had plans to give several lectures and promote his 1998 book My Awakening.  Instead he was arrested last night (Friday) and questioned by police. He was suspected of "denying the Holocaust," an offense under Czech law. One day later he's out of jail but ordered to get out of the country.  Prague's Charles University said it banned a lecture by Duke, originally invited to lecture to students taking a course on extremism.

The Czech interim prime minister-designate, Jan Fischer, appeared on Czech television to say the opinions expressed in Duke's book were "simply unacceptable, incomprehensible."

Chocolate Price-Fixing: Hershey, Mars, Nestle & Cadbury Accused

   

ETHIC SOUP first wrote about the ethics of chocolate in October when we found out that Hersey was "fudging" about some of its candy bars. Instead of using chocolate, Hershey -- and some other candy manufacturers -- was making "mockolate," fake chocolate candy. The top chocolate-seller in the U.S. was throwing the chocolate out.

It replaced cocoa butter with vegetable oil and changed what it used to list "milk chocolate" to the word "chocolatey." It was a trick. No chocolate, no cocoa was an ingredient. OUCH!  

So, we've been keeping our eyes on Hershey and the other big chocolate-makers. We've got some bad news. Hershey, Mars, Nestle and Cadbury -- which together control 75 percent of the U.S. chocolate market -- are facing accusations of price fixing.

In fact, there are 87 antitrust suits against them, accusing the companies of conspiring to raise chocolate candy prices: up 10 percent in December 2002, 6 percent in December 2004 and 5 percent in April 2007. Lord knows what they've been up to in the last two years.

United's "Unfriendly Skies" : Airline Charges Fat Passengers Double

 

United Airlines announced this week that fat passengers will be charged double to fly their "friendly skies." Or, they will be told to get off crowded flights and pray that a later flight hasn't also been sold-out.

United announced that its ticket agents will start denying boarding passes this week to people of size if they are "unable to comfortably fasten a safety belt with one extension or sit comfortably with armrests down," -- unless they purchase a second ticket.

UNETHICAL DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION

The fact that other American airlines have already changed policies to charge more to obese fliers doesn't make it right -- it's still discrimination against people with a disability. It's unethical. Our country has yet to officially recognize morbid obesity as a disability, unlike Canada; but then, we still have trouble perceiving alcoholism and drug addiction as diseases.

The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) addressed the issue when it issued its "one-person, one-fare" ruling, effective last January, covering passengers with disabilities including "clinically obese" passengers who cannot fit into a single seat. The CTA ordered its carriers to make available extra seating free of charge to passengers traveling with in Canada who require additional space due to their disabilities, including obesity, or to accommodate an attendant. Passengers requesting extra seating require a doctor's certificate of their disability or need for an attendant as well as medical approval for travel. (More info on the CTA ruling is at this Air Canada web site.) 

BAD TIMING FOR A NEW "FAT TAX"

United's timing isn't good. This "fat tax" or "large charge" comes at a time when Americans are fatter -- one-third of adults says the CDC -- and poorer, with many having lost their pensions, savings and now their jobs in our economic nose-dive. At the same time, the cash-strapped airlines try to squeeze the most revenue out of their planes. "They've crammed more seats onto airplanes, reduced the space between seats and increasingly have sold-out flights," says the Chicago Tribune. 

Life & Death Sexism: Fewer Girls & Women on Kidney Transplant List

  If you are the father of a little girl who needs a new kidney in order to live, you're not going to like this news. The guy next door, your neighbor who is the father of a little boy who also needs a new kidney to live, has a much better chance of getting his kid on the kidney transplant list -- because his kid is a boy. You know that boys and men are favored in this country; and as a male, you've been a recipient of this favoritism.

It's not just girls who have a tough time getting on the waiting list for a donated kidney. It's also adult women. Your wife, your daughter's mother, would have a much more difficult time getting on the list than you would. The same applies to your mother, grandmother, sister and aunt. Perhaps you should consider doing something about it.

WHAT ETHICS?

No, no, I'm not talking about China here.  In China, where some families still live on sanpans on the water, you can see the little boys have ropes tied around their waists. That way should they topple into the water, they can be pulled out of the water and rescued. The little girls have no such ropes. Their parents don't feel the girls' lives are worth as much as the boys.

How many Americans would shake their fists, holler and deny that we have that kind of sexism in our country today? One hell of a lot more than those folks who've had daughters or wives they are desperate to get on the Kidney Transplant List.

OLDER WOMEN DIE WITHOUT A CHANCE

Researchers at Johns Hopkins analyzed data from more than half a million patients with renal disease (from 2000 to 2005) and found that female patients over the age of 45 do not have the same access to transplant waiting lists as their male counterparts --even though they fare as well or better than men their age after a transplant. Additionally "as they got older, they had less and less and less," chance according to Dr. Dorry Segev, who led the study. "A lot of older women die without having an opportunity to get on the transplant list."

'Whiffing' Means Taste, Without Calories: Inhale All the Chocolate You Want

    

    

 

When Ethic Soup first reported on "mockolate,"  chocoholics felt betrayed by Hersheys, the top chocolate-seller in the U.S., for producing candy bars with fake chocolate -- while pretending it was still the real stuff. Hersheys had replaced cocoa butter with vegetable oil, yet when describing the candy bars' ingredients, Hersheys changed what used to be real "milk chocolate" to "chocolatey."

WHIFFING FOR ADDICTS

We hadn't heard of "whiffing" chocolate yet. Well, Le Whif is upon us. What is it? It's the name of a new inhaler, promoted as "a revolutionary gadget" that lets users breathe in chocolate with zero calories. Whiffing sounds like something addicts would do; but, of course, chocoholics are self-described as those addicted to chocolate.

Invented by Harvard professor David Edwards, the aerosol inhaler comes in four chocolate flavors -- raspberry, mint, mango and plain. A "mix of culinary art and aerosol science,"  said Edwards, as reported by the Telegraph (UK). "We call it whiffing."

Potential "whiffers" should "be prepared to fork out $53 for 24 chocolate-scented whiffs, which makes this one of the priciest cocoa delights we've come across," says CNET.

The chocolate-flavoured powder is housed in a palm-sized inhaler, or plastic cylinder. Makers assure that "the particles of powder are too large to enter the lungs or do any damage," says the Telegraph.

Easter Meditation: With Maya Angelou & Marian Anderson

        

 

(Top Photo)  Marian Anderson, 1939, singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. (Bottom Photo) Gelatin silver print of Marian Anderson photo by Richard Avedon.

  

This Easter Sunday, I'm reminded of another Easter Sunday 70 years ago. 

In early 1939, the great contralto Marian Anderson was told by the Daughters of the American Revolution that she could not sing at Washington D.C.'s DAR-owned Constitution Hall because of her race. This caused First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from the organization. Next, the DC Board of Education refused to allow Ms. Anderson to sing in concert at Central High School on the same grounds -- she was a negro.

Finally, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes offered Marian Anderson the opportunity to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. And she did so 70 years ago.

    

  

The following poem by Maya Angelou, to me, seems most appropriate as we remember Marian Anderson's triumphant concert on Easter Sunday ... when still she rose.

 

"STILL  I  RISE"

By Maya Angelou

 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

 

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

 

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries.

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

 

Hoarding Time Part II: Guns & Ammo, Gold & Cash, Cigarettes & Delicacies

 Neon Hoarding Collage  -- Copyright by Sharon McEachern

There's a whole lot of hoarding going on. Of course, if you're among the poorest of the poor, you don't have anything to hoard -- nor do you have the means to get the money to buy something to hoard.

HOARDING FOR THE APOCALYPSE

But, if you're rich you could be "hoarding up for the apocalypse." That's what Baltimore Sun writer Dan Rodricks says about CEOs' desire for even more wealth being a preparation for "end-times luxury."

The concentration of wealth in America has accelerated in the last decade, with the gap dividing middle class and rich becoming bigger and bigger, and the division between rich and poor has become "so vast as to be immeasurable," says Rodricks. That sounds familiar Dan -- the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, right?

But, it does become shocking when you realize that the ratio of total CEO compensation to average worker pay increased from 24:1 in 1965 to 262:1 in 2005, according to the Economic Policy Institute.  Four years ago, in 2005, a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than an average worker earned ($41,861) in 52 weeks.

An example of hoarding for the apocalypse is the decision by JPMorgan Chase to go ahead with plans to spend $138 million on new jets and build "the premiere corporate aircraft hangar on the eastern seaboard" to house them, says ChattahBox. It fits into Rodrick's theory about why the corporate rich continue to indulge and reward themselves despite a public uproar amid financial crisis. Hoarding for the apocalypse calls for belief that the end is coming and that wealth will insulate the wealthy from the misery that will befall the rest of us, he says:

"The apocalyptic rich have hoarded cash and assets -- and they continue to accumulate as much as possible -- and they've built retreats to allay a deep fear that, when the world starts to fall apart, they will be at the top of a mountain, in a secure compound with its own source of energy and potable water (and a decade's supply of Cabernet), isolated from the screaming, rioting masses" writes Rodricks.

It's Hoarding Time Again: Guns & Ammo, Gold & Cash, Cigarettes & Delicacies

Hoarding Collage -- Copyright by Sharon McEachern 

 

"Oh, it's hoarding time again, you're gonna leave me..."

I can hear Ray Charles singing now. The hoarding news is everywhere, -- everywhere people fear that they could lose what they value most, that it will disappear when they need or want it.

What's being hoarded? Everything from cash and gold, guns and ammunition, cigarettes and cigars plus delicacies like Roquefort cheese, fine chardonnays and hand-made chocolates.

The hoarders are individuals, businesses, banks, charities, universities and governments. If you're willing to do some digging, there might even be extra bones in your dog's secret stash buried in the back yard. Like fleas, the hoarding bug is catching.

CASH HOARDING

We're six months into a supposed rescue, but it now looks like many of the banks that got money from the taxpayers have been hoarding it instead of lending it. Now we have even more small businesses that still can't get the credit they need. Combine that with the number of jobs that have been lost and the result is fewer and fewer people spending money.

Big investment-grade companies are hoarding cash in the face of economic uncertainty, raising record amounts of debt in the bond markets, as they are cutting dividends and capital expenditure. Analysts and economists are concerned that this building up of war chests and liquidity buffers -- at a time when banks are still hoarding funds -- means that more money is moving away from promoting economic activity, reports the Financial Times.