HerbEly

James. B. Comey, Intelligence Ethics, Cardinal Virtues & Leadership Responsibilities

Tuesday’s WaPo ran an excerpt from a speech by former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey. He successfully resisted attempts by the Bush administration to over-rule Justice Department findings that parts of NSA’s warrentless surveillance program were illegal. Comey’s speech speech is an excellent description of the craft of intelligence analysis and an inspiring exhortation for the practice of ethical standards in the intelligence community. Here are some quotes:

Opting Out from Junk Mail & Phone Calls

This summer a relative, visiting from abroad, unintentionally placed her name and our address on several junk mail lists. I can guess that she gave our address when checkout clerks asked for hers. Now we are getting toy and maternity catalogs on a weekly basis.

A visit to the World Privacy Forum's Top Ten Opt Outs will help reduce our flow of unwanted catalogs. When you visit this site, here is what you will find:

World Privacy Forum's Top Ten Opt Outs

July 22, 2007
As privacy experts, we are frequently asked about “opting out,” and which opt outs we think are the most important. This list is a distillation of ideas for opting out that the World Privacy Forum has developed over the years from responding to those questions. The list below does not contain all opt outs that are available. Rather, it contains the opt outs that we believe are the most important and will be the most useful to the most consumers.
Many people have told us that they think opting out is confusing. We agree. Opting out can range from the not-too-difficult (the FTC’s Do Not Call list is a fairly simple opt out) to the challenging (the National Advertising Initiative opt out can be tricky). Our hope is that this list will clarify which opt out does what, and how to go about opting out.
In this list, some opt outs can be done by phone, some have to be sent in a letter via postal mail, and some can be accomplished online. Some opt outs last forever, some have time limits, and others can be changed at will. If an opt out is on this list, it is because we thought it might be important enough to be worth whatever annoyance it may pose.
Not every opt out is right for everyone, and not everyone will necessarily want to opt out. It is a personal choice. Take a look at the list below, and see if any of the opt outs appeal to you, or might make a difference to you in some way. And if you know of an opt out that has been important to you that we didn’t include here, please send us your personal “top opt outs.” We’ll consider them for the next revision of this list.

Top ten opt outs:

1. National Do Not Call Registry

2. Prescreened offers of credit and insurance

3. DMA opt outs

4. Financial institution opt outs

5. CAN SPAM

6. Credit freeze

7. FERPA

8. Data broker opt outs

9. Internet portal opt outs

10. NAI opt out

Our recycling bin will capture items not caught by opt outs filed last week. However, it will take time, as the Mail Preference Service cautions:

However, remember that it can sometimes take month ore more until putting in an opt out will have an effect, depending on the type of list. Be patient.

Ghosts in Environmental Discourse

In the GetReligion Blog Terry Mattingly writes about ghosts– religious images that hide behind the pixels and in between the lines of mainstream news reporting. These images and ideas are present, but not adequately reported because the press just doesn’t “Get Religion.” Environmental reporting is haunted by “ghosts” as well. For a view of some of the hidden religions terms in the environmental discourse see Environmentalism: Death and Resurrection by Mark Sagoff. (Sagof is director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy and the University of Maryland.) Here is an extract:

An editorial in The Economist magazine quipped that the modern environmental movement borrows its underlying narrative from Christian thought. “There is a Garden of Eden (unspoiled nature), a fall (economic development), the usual moral degeneracy (it’s all man’s fault), and the pressing sense that the world is enjoying its final days (time is running out: please donate now!).” The global economy, at least in comparison to the past, however, seems to be booming. Environmentalism may be in its Last Days. As one commentator put it, “Secular apocalypticism appears devoid of an underlying redemptive meaning and is thus characterized by a sense of hopelessness and despair.” The “Death of Environmentalism” is much discussed. Why has the environmental movement, which waxed as a political force in the 1970s, waned today?

In recent years, however, ecologists have come to question these assumptions. Ecologists are no longer sure that nature has a mathematical organization above the level of the organism or the population. Many ecologists wonder if human beings can be excluded from the idea of the ecosystem. Ecological science has moved away from the foundational beliefs that nature possesses a hidden order—that there are ecological “systems” or “communities” the “structure” of which “naturally” or by definition excludes human
influence. The environmental movement nevertheless continues to look to science to support its faith that there is a hidden order in nature which human beings disrupt because of our “wrongness”—notably our greed or ignorance or intransigence. Environmentalists invoke science to defend traditional religious views

Read Sagoff's discussion of the development of the environmental creed. Much to ponder here.

Religion, Spirituality, Hell & the Crazy Father

Last week I heard a striking comparison:

“Religion is for people who don’t want to go to hell; spirituality is for people who have been there and don’t want to go back.”

The statement captures a valid and important insight – but I was reluctant to post it. People attach so many different meanings to the words, religion, spirituality that the statement is subject to misinterpretation. Posting it, I thought, would get me into comment hell.
The readings from last Sunday changed my mind. They proceed from the same insight. Let’s see how:

New Blog on Workplace Spirituality

Bill Peel posted a comment on my entry for Sept 11th. This, of course, led me to look at his blog, 24 Seven Faith. His perspectives on leadership, witnessing and the Faith in the Workplace Movement resonate strongly with me. I’m putting his blog on my list of friends. Hope that this is ok, with you, Bill.

Salesian Spirituality

As part of my exploration of workplace spirituality I ran across this long (~26 page)article on THE SPIRITUALITY OF SAINT FRANCIS OF SALES by Mgr Francis Vincent. Here is an extract:

"We ought not to try to increase the number of our desires, or our exercises but the perfection with which we perform these exercises, seeking thus to win more by a single act (as we undoubtedly will) than by a hundred acts performed under our own initiative and affection."[22]
…
If perfection consists in doing what God wants us to do, wherever we may be, then no change of life is needed and holiness no longer is the exclusive privilege of cloister or desert. When Saint Francis first appeared, it was generally held that devotion, in the strict meaning of the work, belonged to specialists and that it was to be sought only in the cloister because communal life in the desert is no longer possible.
…
"It is an error, therefore a heresy, to want to banish a life of holiness from the company of military men, from the workman's shop... from the home of married people."[23]
…
.. What does this mean, if not that each of us must excel in his profession: the worker must be a good worker, the soldier must be a good soldier, the professor a good professor. In the eyes of our saint no one can be a good Christian if he "does not work hard at the duty of his charge."[25] So much a part must one be of one's profession that, when needful, one sacrifices for it spiritual exercises which are of themselves higher and holier. Not only must "the lawyer know how to pass from prayer to pleading, the merchant to bargain, the married woman to the duties of her marriage and the duties of her home";[26] but they must, when necessary, subordinate pious practices to the obligations of their state; without, however, allowing themselves to be deceived.
…
22. "Entretiens," VII.
23. "Introduction," part 1, chapter 3.
24. "Introduction," part 3, chapter 1.
25. Letter of April 20, 1610.
26. "Introduction," part 2, chapter 8.

Workplace Spirituality: 400 years Later and Still Searching

Most spiritual writers and Church leaders have, it seems to me, overlooked ignored a vital aspect of the spiritual lives of the people: workplace spirituality.

One Bishop, St. Francis de Sales, got it right in 1608 when he wrote:

Almost all of us have hitherto treated of devotion had in view the instruction of persons wholly withdrawn form the world, or they have taught a kind of devotion that leads to this absolute retirement. My intention is to instruct those who live in towns, in families, or at court. By their condition they are obliged to lead, as to outward appearances, an ordinary life. Frequently, under an imaginary pretence of impossibility, they will not so much as think of an undertaking a devout life.

From Introduction to the Devout Life (See also Fr. William Meninger’s companion volume The Committed Life)

Four hundred years later, Catholic and Protestant leaders are still looking for a theology of work.