If you can get past the statistical formulas, there is an interesting article in the May 2008 issue of American Political Science Review on whistleblowing (Michael M. Ting, p.249). The study considers the effectiveness of whistleblowing and evaluates strategies based on managerial models.

The article also reviews the personal costs & benefits of whistleblowing and historical protections of such. Pertinent cases include the Civil Service Reform Act (1978), the Whistleblower Protection Act (1989) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (1992).

We have been talking in class about obscenity — how to define it, how to monitor it, how to regulate it, etc. I came across an article about students in Europe having to share tiny apartments, and a French student group satirized the situation with an edgy poster campaign.

The article in reference is from the May 23, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, beginning on p. A1. Could you imagine such a poster being displayed on campus here?! Not in 1,000,000 years.

The following link is the source of the original poster. Disclaimer: The image might be considered obscene!

http://unef.fr/delia-CMS/index/article_id-2282/topic_id-216,,/construction-de-logements-pour-les-etudiants.html

I went shopping at the bookstore this past weekend and found a lovely book of paintings by Mary Cassatt. She’s one of my favorite artists; her portraits of mothers and children are so tender.

As I was thumbing through the book, one picture caught my eye and made me think abt my last discussion paper on obscenity. The portrait is a beautiful depiction of a mother nursing her infant. The breast is not even fully visible, and it is certainly not painted in a way that a rational person would find sexual.

However, Mary Cassatt was born in 1844, so many of her paintings were crafted in an era when controversies leading up to the Comstock Act were at fever pitch. It occurred to me that this particular painting would likely have been confiscated by the postal service and destroyed as obscene material. How sad.

It is pretty commonplace for high-demand speakers to receive an honorarium, accept payment for expenses or require a fee for speeches. However, The Washington Post requires its employees to screen speaking engagements with the editors before accepting fees. David Broder and Bob Woodward recently came under scrutiny for accepting such fees.

In Broder’s case, it seems that he actually did have a personal benefit from the speaking engagements (especially where free trips, etc. were concerned), and there is a reasonable argument for conflict of interest.

In Woodward’s case, however, the money he received for speaking went into a family foundation for charitable purposes. While it would have been better for him to run the speaking invitations by the editors to be on the safe side, at least he was not receiving funds for his personal use.

Both Broder and Woodward have retired from full-time employment with the Post but are still on the roster as contractual writers. As such, they should have followed the policy of letting the editors know when they had speaking-for-payment opportunities.

Howell, Deborah. “When Speech Isn’t Free.” The Washington Post. June 22, 2008. B06

I’ve put off blogging my remarks about “The Pentagon Papers” (2002, starring James Spader) because I’m torn abt what to say. I’ve commented in other posts and papers that the problem with challenges to the First Amendment is application and enforcement. What’s good for the goose must be good for the gander; it can’t be picked apart.

I struggle with my opinion on this true-to-life cinematic story for several reasons:

• I believe that security clearances are granted for a darn good reason and not everyone should have one;
• I think it is unethical for a paper to publish classified information;
• I don’t think the general public needs to know every detail about a war effort (as much as we’d like to think we’re capable of running the country, sometimes we need to accept that we don’t have the same access to global information that the President has);
• In a democracy that is supposed to have open channels of communication and checks & balances across all branches of gov’t, I don’t like the idea of being lied to, especially about something as serious as war.
• Part of the function of a free press is to challenge the status quo.

The movie portrayed that Ellsberg did not share portions of the papers that pertained to troop locations/movements or anything else that would jeopardize our armed forces in Vietnam at the time. I haven’t done the research to know if this is true or not, but it does seem to indicate that he had some scruples. He obviously struggled over his convictions. I do think that he would have been convicted of treason if the judge had not declared a mistrial. This was a scenario he was apparently willing to accept.

War is never pretty. I don’t believe there is a “good” way to conduct a war that will please everyone, because you can’t please everyone. Thankfully, we have better technology today than we had back then, and we can use more sophisticated equipment in place of so many troops on the ground, but the fact remains that in war — people die. The bad guys die, the good guys die and unfortunately, innocent civilians die. Could we — should we — have operated differently in Vietnam? Probably. Can we rewrite the past? No.

While I’m on my soapbox, I will add one more comment. Reporters who are embedded with our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan right now should know that people back home actually DO want to read and hear positive stories about our military successes. Instead of seeking out the rogue nutjobs for the latest scandal, why not tell us about the new schools, water treatment facilities, hospitals and businesses that have been built and are operational … thanks to our military?