The Sunday Papers – Turn Back the Clock Edition

I always love the night we get to turn the clocks back one hour – it’s like this little “bonus” sleep time, and we get to awaken to sunlight instead of darkness (when I was in Montana last week, it was still dark at 8AM). As you can imagine, I’m not so happy in the spring when the opposite happens.

After walking through the house and resetting all the clocks, it was time for the Sunday Papers (all NY Times):

Ben Stein is at it again, taking aim at “Corporate America” and their accountability (or lack of it) to shareholders. He’s very good at posing those “Hmmm….” questions, and he asked a few good ones this week. To wit:

“But is it really right for prominent American executives, amid a host of scandals involving other executives looting their shareholders blind, to have the best and the brightest of academe and the Street lobbying for less accountability to shareholders?

Is there any higher goal at all for management than serving the stockholders openly and honestly? Is “competitiveness” even a meaningful word, compared with honesty and integrity in serving the owners of the company? What can “competitive” mean in this context? Would a hospital be more “competitive” if it didn’t have to take care not to kill its patients when it operated on them?”

He goes on to say that most of corporate America gave up on measuring success by the way it treats its workers “long ago“, and is more focused on profits than ever. This is compounded, says Ben, by a US Treasury secretary who is supporting a committee that is looking at ways to even further “inoculate” corporate chieftains from accountability. His advice?

“Maybe it’s time for him to back off this committee and start thinking of a legacy that includes law, integrity and responsibility to more than just the chosen few of Wall Street and the corporate boardroom.”

Integrity at all levels, including our government – what a concept!

On a different note, I was quite interested in this piece by Julie Bick about the latest trend to go Halloween “Trick or Treating” at the local mall. For example, the mega-big Mall of America in Minnesota is expecting 10,000 kids. While it does bring a measure of safety and protection from the elements, what does this trend say about our values and sense of community? Here’s one view from the article (from Monique Tilford, acting executive director of New American Dream):

Trick-or-treating at a shopping center replaces community with commercialism, so that children start to associate Halloween with local retailers, rather than with local friends. “I am sympathetic to parents’ concerns”, she said, “but you can celebrate Halloween safely without salespeople from the Gap.”

I used to love “Trick or Treating” when I was a kid- our city would do it on a Sunday afternoon instead of Halloween night, and that seems like a better compromise to me than going the commercial route. It was great to interact with the neighbors, even if it was just for this one afternoon.

This decline in interaction is a concern to Thomas H. Sander, an expert on civic engagement issues at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard:

“A time may come when you need each other,” he said, “whether it is to mobilize together to face an environmental disaster, terrorist threat, create a crime watch, or just find a baby sitter or borrow a ladder.”

It will be our first Halloween at our new home on Tuesday, and we’re hoping our neighborhood defies this trend and we see little ghosts and goblins on our doorstep – we’ll be waiting!

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