Silkwood

I recently saw the story of Karen Silkwood as portrayed by Meryl Streep. It was shocking to me that Kerr-McGee, the plutonium plant she worked at, could get away with such negligence in regards to their plant safety. What really was creepy was how the samples taken from her home showed huge levels of plutonium, yet the ones that the company took were moderately low. Picture from SanDiego.edu archives





The plant was basically killing people for profit, or at the very least had no regard for their safety and well-being. As is often the case, the whistle-blower gets the most heat, as co-workers of hers were disgruntled over her attempts to expose Kerr-McGee's unsafe practices. She died suspiciously in a one car crash while trying to expose these wrongs. The plant finally closed in 1975, but the civil litigation went on for years. It makes you wonder how often this sort of stuff goes on in large companies that we DON'T ever get to hear about. Big companies seem like they accept dirty business practices, as long as profits are rolling in.

Union Carbide Case

In searching for a case study for my research project, I stumbled across a case I had never heard of that I found very interesting: the Union Carbide Case in India. Often referred to as the Bhopal Disaster, a gas leak at their plant resulted in 3,800 mortalities and several people left with severe disabilities. This ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court in India, and at the time Union Carbide was claiming that a disgruntled employee was responsible. Though they did send someone to respond the next day, it took them until the next year, 1985 to set up a relief fund, and that was only $120,000 initially. They later offered a settlement of $350 million, built a hospital, etc. Then in 2004, it turns out the government of India had profited some 357 million from the interest on the settlement given for the victims. It seems everyone was shady in this incident. I am interested to learn more about it.

In the picture, a photo of one of the children killed in the gas leak. 1984, BBC News.

A Day in the Life

I read recently that Heather Mills, estranged wife of Paul McCartney, had been fired by her publicist. This struck me as odd, but apparently it can be done in the celebrity arena just as much as any other. The reason seems to be that she went on a morning show and started crying about how cruel the media has been to her and how it's destroyed her life. Apparently the publicist felt very strongly that this sympathy ploy was a mistake.



Assuming that Heather Mills was telling the truth, that the media blitzkrieg has made her suicidal, etc. then why is it so wrong to tell the truth? From an ethical perspective, isn't this what a publicist would admire in a client? Despite everyone calling her a gold digger, I can't help but feel like her humanitarian efforts suggest that she can't be all bad. She has worked towards ridding the world of landmines, protecting animals from cruelty, providing prosthetic limbs to children who need them, etc.

Sure, Babs Walters spoke out against her and said that she was difficult, but isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? It seems like just how in the corporate world publicists are retisant to stand up to the big guys, the same is true of the celebrity world, and everyone is kowtowing to Paul McCartney and his diamond dogs.

Teen Pregnancy and P.R.

In an article that came out in the Dallas Morning News, Robert Garrett revealed that Texas currently has the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation. href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/110507dnmetteenbirths.35daddb.html">
While the article focuses on statistics and Erandy Gonzalez, a 17-year-old expectant mother, what really stood out to me is the fact that Texas is still teaching abstinence in schools.
Relying on outdated legislation passed by then-governor Bush, birth control measures are not passed on to teens in middle and/or high school. To add reckless insult, Governor Perry has taken the stance that abstinence is the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy. Therefore, even though more and more minors are becoming mothers in this state than any other, the best thing to do is ignore the problem?!??
From a public relations standpoint, this strikes me as atrocious. This is obviously an issue that needs to be addressed and action needs to be taken, but the powers that be are picking now to dig their heels in. Doesn't make sense...what's more, they have this Cathy Adams woman insinuating that the only reason that California's rates are lower is because they are liberally aborting pregnancies. Ok, where is any factual evidence to substantiate this? Pointing the finger at others seems like the second least effective strategy in this debacle.
Sadly the pregnant teen profiled thought she was on the pill, and was actually taking estrogen pills. If she had been educated, would this have happened? Probably not.
Though nobody wants to talk about teens having sex, the pregnancy rates would lead us to believe that they are, and maybe if the governer and his staff took this opportunity to improve the situation instead of ignoring it, some parents, who may not be ready for babies, would have a little more piece of mind and protection.

Flastow, Skilling, and Lay: The Shifty Triumverate

In the documentary "The Smartest Guys in the Room", we watched several shady aspects of the corporation that was Enron.

From the blackouts they were directly responsible for
to the millions of dollars they stole, to the thousands of employees
who lost their pensions, this Houston corporation managed to ruin the
lives of so many, all in the name of greed.

In the clips from the hearings,Skilling seemed like he was completely unaware, but his
response to a Harvard admissions professor in his youth, "I'm FUCKING
smart", definitely shows an arrogant bravado, the same kind that would
be a necessity in a scam of this magnitude.

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Fastow, another sleezeball, was trying to get banks and investors to fork out dough for his shell
corporation, all of which was going directly to him. The ethical issues
with this company are multitudinous, but greed is pretty universal in
big business it seems. What was so flamboyantly abhorrent was that they
didn't care that they were causing people to be without power, that
people were being harmed by fires, etc. As the movie says, the Enron
traders were saying "burn baby, burn! More money for us."
This rogue business actually adopted a company-wide policy of greedy
self-perpetuation: dog eat dog, every man for himself.

Even the public relations guy was slimy, almost as if they were bragging about what they got away with for so long. Pretty unsettling.

You would like to think that this sort of business model wouldn't succeed, but
they were the eighth largest company in the world for a while....
However, karma did eventually catch up to them, even if their consciences didn't.