Ethic Soup

FDA Warns: E-Cigarettes Contain Harmful Toxins, Cancer Causing Chemicals and a Antifreeze Compound

ETHIC SOUP WARNED about the probable dangers of e-cigarettes four months ago in the post "Hey Hey FDA,Whaddaya Say: Are E-Cigarettes Safe, Eh?"

FINALLY FDA RESPONDS

Finally, last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning, announcing that FDA laboratory tests on electronic cigarettes found carcinogens and other toxic chemicals dangerous to humans -- one was an antifreeze compound.

Battery-operated devices containing cartridges filled with nicotine and other chemicals, e-cigarettes look like a real cigarette with a glowing tip. It turns highly addictive nicotine into a vapor that is inhaled. And, they are spiced with kid-favored flavors such as chocolate, cola and bubble gum.

E-CIGARETTES ARE DANGEROUS

Although public health experts including the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society have said they are concerned about the safety of e-cigarettes, manufacturers and distributors have proclaimed e-cigarettes are a "healthy substitute" for smoking. They want the money!

Gidget the Chihuahua Dies: 'Yo Quiero Taco Bell' Stereotype

GIDGET THE SASSY, bug-eyed, big-eared chihuahua is now saying hello to Doggie Heaven and looking for the big Taco Bell-in-the-Sky. The 15-year-old doggie diva who was the star of Taco Bell commercials died this week.  While in retirement, she had a massive stroke. Although most of the thousands of news reports of her death claimed that she died from the stroke, in actuality she had to be euthanized.  It was as if her fans couldn't take the truth.

"She" became a "he" in the TV commercials and in some pidgin "Spanglish" spoke the line "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" which passed into the lexicon of pop culture. Professional breeders said Gidget's ears were too big, her nose too long and that she had a questionable bite. But we loved her and imitated her slogans. A toy version of the lovable, sad-eyed chihuahua sold briskly at Taco Bell's 6,000 outlets IN 2000.

ADS PROMOTED HISPANIC STEREOTYPES

The ads made the Taco Bell mascot wildly popular, although Gidget found herself embroiled in a controversial ethics issue while performing in the commercials, provoking criticism from activists who accused Taco Bell of promoting Hispanic stereotypes. Spanish-language radio stations in Florida were flooded with calls from listeners who said the commercials were insulting to Hispanics.  

Sometimes Taco Bell had the chihuahua dressed up like a tiny Che Guevara (a revolutionary wearing a beret) leading the masses in a mindless march for Gordita-ism.  For other ads, the dog played a Mexican bandit, wearing a sombrero.  It's not difficult to see why Latin Americans accused the chihuahua's character of being a thinly-veiled cultural stereotype.

Airport Ethics & Tarmac Turtles: Grounds Crews Got 'em

 

IT'S A TRUE TARMAC TURTLE TALE, an ethics story at JFK International Airport in New York.  This story doesn't involve the usual airport personnel who not infrequently seem to show an absence of ethical consideration for passengers.

Maybe it's the difference between indoor airport people and the outdoor guys. The suits versus the overalls.  Maybe it's the florescent lights inside the terminal, or the fatigued and fussy passengers  --also under those florescent lights. Grounds crews work outside. The tarmac can be hotter than hell, but at least they get real sunshine.

ANIMAL ETHICS

We're talking animal ethics. No, pilots can't help it if bird's in flight get sucked into plane engines. Neither can the birds, for that matter.

This particular story is about turtles.

A few weeks ago, a runway at John F. Kennedy Intl. Airport was shut down one morning, when at least 78  Diamondback turtles climbed out of a nearby Jamaica Bay (which surrounds the airport) and crawled onto the tarmac.

Although the reptiles are shielded by shells (developed from their ribs), it's doubtful that they could withstand the weight of your average passenger jet. A Boeing 767-300, with PW-4050s engines, has a maximum takeoff weight of 351,000 lbs. OUCH!

Parents Sue School for Arrest of Autistic 8-Year-Old Girl

  

WHAT CAN an unarmed 8-year-old girl, who is autistic, do to warrant her school teachers and principal having police arrest her, charge her with battery, put her in handcuffs, haul her off in a police car and jail her? 

In January, the staff at Kootenai Elementary School in Sandpoint, Idaho, claimed she spit on and inappropriately touched two teachers. Little Evelyn Towry, a third-grader with Asperger's syndrome, was handcuffed by police and taken to the county's juvenile lockup, where she was released to her parents. Later the county prosecutor dropped the battery charge against the 8 year old. 

WHO REALLY DID THE BATTERING?

What transpired in this elementary classroom that created such a disturbance? Something unbelievably horrible -- the little girl wanted to wear her favorite jacket. And, by God, the teachers weren't going to allow that! How important was getting that little jacket off of the 54-pound child? What, the end of the world was going to come sooner? And just who was it that was out-of-control to allow things to escalate? Wasn't there even one other adult around to say: "Whoa! Calm down, you are the adults, the teachers, not the disabled child."

TEACHERS HELD HER DOWN AND BRUISED HER

The teachers physically restrained the child to the point of causing bruises, said Evelyn's mother. Her father videotaped those thumb-sized bruises found on his daughter's legs after teachers held down both her arms and legs. They isolated her in a room separated from the other children who were having a big Christmas party, to which they wouldn't let Evelyn attend because she would not take off that jacket. Her parents said that she was tormented by memories of the incident, reported ABC News.

What is the matter with some of our teachers and the school boards who employ them?

Michelle Obama's Father Was Buried at Burr Oak Cemetery, Or Was He?

  

JUST DISCLOSED: The father of First Lady Michelle Obama (pictured above with family) was one of those souls buried at Burr Oak Cemetery, now scene of a national scandal.

The First Lady's White House office has confirmed that Fraser Robinson III, was buried in the Chicago-suburban cemetery where cemetery workers are now accused of digging up the dead and reselling their burial plots. There were no further comments from her office. It is not known, yet, if his remains were disturbed, as one of the 300 bodies which have been dug up and discarded in a mass grave, according to investigators.

(Just five minutes ago, moments after posting this article, CNN live announced that the White House has just retracted its confirmation that Fraser Robinson III was buried at Burr Oak Cemetery. However, no specifics, no other information is available. Who made the error? Surely the First Lady's press secretary would not confirm without checking with the First Lady Michelle Obama or, perhaps, her mother Marian Robinson. So, what happened? It makes it appear that they don't know where Robinson was buried. We at Ethic Soup have decided not to remove the post. It's an interesting story in itself that the White House made the error -- kind of like a metaphor for the Burr Oak tragic mess -- of where the President's father-in-law is buried. And second, since Robinson died in 1991, it's nice to provide a little information about the man who raised the First Lady and was her "rock.")

FRASER ROBINSON III

Fraser Robinson certainly was not famous during his lifetime. Born in 1935 in Chicago, he was raised there and married Marian Shields, who was also born in Chicago. Together they raised two children, Craig and Michelle LaVaughn, on the southside.

The family lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a bungalow, rented from Marian's aunt, reports Chicago Magazine.  Michelle's father worked swing shifts for the City of Chicago, tending the boilers and pumps at a water-filtration plant, where he eventually became foreman.

He became progressively disabled by multiple sclerosis, walking with two canes and later used a motorized cart.(See: Life in spite of ms) "He was my rock," Michelle is quoted as saying.

Fraser died in 1991, at the age of 56. His wife, Marian Robinson, now lives with her daughter, the President of the United States and her granddaughters in the White House.

Others who were buried at Burr Oak included numerous blues and jazz musicians, Negro League baseball players, champion boxer and many, many just plain folks.

TO READ: "BURR OAK CEMETERY: MAMA WHERE ARE YOU, THEY'VE ROBBED YOUR GRAVE," CLICK HERE.

TO READ: "WHERE IS EMMETT TILLS COFFIN & WHERE ARE THE BABYLAND GRAVES?" CLICK HERE.

TO READ "EMMETT TILL CAN FINALLY REST IN PEACE: COFFIN SAVED FOREVER IN SMITHSONIAN" CLICK HERE.

By Sharon McEachern 

Where Is Emmett Till's Coffin & Where Are the Babyland Graves?

 

EMMETT TILL'S COFFIN has been found -- broken and rusting in a dilapidated back shed at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, a suburb of Chicago. He wasn't in it. Instead there was a family of possums that ran out when the casket was opened, said Sheriff Tom Dart.

Thankfully, his body's second grave, where it is now interred at the African-American cemetery, has not been disturbed, said investigators. In 2005, Till's body was exhumed 50 years after his murder helped spur the civil rights movement, to further investigate his death. He was not reburied in the same casket, as is customary.

More than 300 other graves, however, were disturbed -- grave diggers-turned-grave robbers threw the unearthed corpses from older graves (mostly bones now) onto a truck and hauled them to a huge mass grave at the back of the cemetery. Many of the bones clattered off the truck and remained beside cemetery roads -- for years. The grave robbers couldn't be bothered to pick up the bones. Why were all of these graves dug up? So the grave plots could be resold. For money.

WHERE ARE THE BABIES?

And now there is the discovery that all of the many infants buried in a section of the cemetery named "Baby Land" are missing. Where are the babies? There is no sign that they were ever there. Because of the missing babies and the human bones found lying in the open all over the cemetery, law enforcement has closed the cemetery to the public. There are some 5,000 graves at Burr Oak and the records mapping burial plots have been destroyed or altered by the suspects. It's going to take a long time to investigate. There's no way that investigators will be able to identify all the bodies, bones and grave locations. Too many, too long, too impossible.

Burr Oak Cemetery: 'Mama Where Are You? They've Gone and Robbed Your Grave'

 

BURR OAK was for many years one of the few cemeteries around Chicago where a black person could be buried -- all of the other cemeteries were for WHITES ONLY. And now they've gone and robbed the graves of at least 300 buried souls, throwing the bodies in a common hole in back of the cemetery in the Chicago suburb Alsip, IL. "They" were not whites, but rather African-Americans. 

GRAVE DIGGERS ROBBED HUNDREDS OF GRAVES

There were four altogether -- a ring leader and three grave diggers. They plundered old graves, crushed open the concrete liners and carted the human remains to a dump site. If bones rattled off the dump truck on the way, the bones were left on the side of the cemetery roads, said investigators.

Other graves were double stacked, one body on top of another. It was all so the plots could be resold and the perpetrators could make money -- untraceable cash money. The sheriff says it was more than $300,000 over the last four years; but, they only just the investigatioon.

Yesterday, four cemetery employees were arrested by Cook County Sheriff's officers: former cemetery manager Carolyn Towns, 49; foreman Keith Nicks, 45, dump-truck operator Terrence Nicks, 39 and backhoe operator Maurice Dailey, 59. Each was charged initially with dismembering a human body and each faces 30 years in prison.

Hoards of TV news crews invaded the cemetery to tell the horrific story -- live and all day. Sheriff's officers, state police, and county state's attorney general were all there. The FBI was there with big gear, like a thermal imaging machine to see underground and figure out which graves were robbed and which untouched. When I tuned into CNN, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart was about to give a press conference. But, before the Reverend Jesse Jackson and most of the media mob had arrived, however, something really thoughtful and decent happened.

July 4th in History

TODAY is Independence Day in America and we celebrate the day in 1776 when the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. It's our cherished symbol of human rights and liberty. And  other historical events have happened on the 4ths of July since then:

On July 4, 1802, the U.S. Military Academy officially opened its doors at West Point, N.Y. This photo from West Point archives shows various West Point cadet uniforms.

 

On July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years to-the-day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, both former presidents and intense competitors John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on Independence Day.

On July 4, 1831, James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States died.

 

On July 4, 1872, Calvin Coolidgewas born and would become the 30th president of the United States, when he got to put on an Indian headdress and pose for this picture. Actually in 1924, President Coolidge signed a bill granting Native Americans full citizenship in their native country (ahem). In the photo left, Coolidge was made a chief of the Sioux by Henry Standing Bear.

On July 4, 1919, Jack Dempsey defeated Jess Willard in Toledo, Ohio, to win the world heavyweight boxing title.

 

 

Declaration of Independence: Cherished Symbol of Liberty Drafted by Thomas Jefferson

  

INDEPENDENCE Hall in Philadelphia was the site where the Declaration of Independence was signed -- not on July 4, 1776, as most believe, but rather August 2, 1776. It was drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28 and is America's most cherished symbol of liberty. In exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson wrote down the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people. Here the ideals of individual liberty and "self-evident truths" were expressed as the nation broke ties between the colonies and the mother country.

Have you ever really read the Declaration of Independence -- more than a few oft-repeated phrases in the first few paragraphs? Stop and take ten minutes now and read it. After all, it is one of those things that should be on everyone's "Things to Do Before I Die" list. America is your country! This is how it started.

 

 

WHEN in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal stations to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving for 4th of July and Freedom

This is a wonderful prayer written by Rabbi Michael Lerner, with some adaptation by Maureen Fiedler, first brought to our attention by Faithstones blog. Do share it with others also.

A Thanksgiving Prayer for the 4th of July

At this celebration, let's give thanks for the ordinary and extraordinary Americans whose struggles brought about the best of the United States: 

FOR THE WAVES of immigrants from all parts of the world who struggled to accept each other and find a place in this country ...

FOR THE ESCAPED SLAVES and their allies, particularly Quakers, evangelical Christians, and freedom-loving secularists, who built the underground railroad and helped countless people to freedom ...

FOR THE COALITIONS of people -- women and men, black and white -- who built popular support for the emancipation of the slaves ...

FOR THE AFRICAN AMERICANS and allies who went to prison, lost their livelihoods, and were savagely beaten in the struggle for civil rights ...

FOR THE WORKING PEOPLE who championed protections like the eight-hour day, minimum wage, workers' compensation, and the right to organize, often at great personal cost to themselves ...

FOR THE IMMIGRANTS who fought against "nativist" tendencies and refused to close the borders of this country to new groups of immigrants, and who continue to support a policy of "welcoming the stranger" just as this country opened its gates for their ancestors when they were the immigrants and strangers ...

FOR THE WOMEN who risked family, job security, and reputations to shift our collective consciousness about men and women and raise awareness of the effects of patriarchy ...

FOR ALL OF THOSE who risk scorn and violence to lead the struggle against homophobia and for the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people ...

FOR THOSE WHO continue to work for equal access for people with disabilities ...