We can expect two full years of such obstruction and chaos, at a time when the Supreme Court appears bent on undoing years of settled opinion around issues we consider to be at the heart of our democracy.
The winter solstice occurs the day after we turn in grades, and signals both the beginning of winter and the earth’s turn back toward the light. That’s part of the larger world that includes the university. Just as we’ve started to see real activity in our communities, health authorities have recommended wearing masks indoors, given the high number of cases of flu, COVID, and RSV that are overwhelming our hospitals. As we see in so many parts of the public arena, we are not out of the woods yet.
What a week it has been! At the top of the charts would be Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, and his subsequent dismantling of special teams that oversaw content management, ethics, privacy, as well as employment law protections.
It’s hard to look away from natural disasters. We wonder why, after so many years of studying them, their impact has not lessened, and their restoration time has not shortened. The few minutes of attention we give them from the morning newspapers or the evening news is but one type of traumatic information we absorb on a regular basis. It is painful and stress-provoking to take it all in -- school shootings, assaults, property damage, homelessness, and a general uneasiness that we are not safe in public places. Some of our anxiety is surely left over from the worst of pandemic times.
We are enjoying the last weeks of summer, interspersed with climate change indicators that bring fires, floods, excessive heat, and even an earthquake or two. As I write this on September 11, I am mindful that there are thousands more victims than the 2,996 who died that morning in 2001 who have died unexpectedly while simply going about their business.
I have been teaching a graduate course that I renamed to its original title, “Ethics, Policy, and Law in Information Management,” for ten years now. This spring we read aloud the Bill of Rights, and before I could make my usual statement that the founding documents of the United States are imperfect and still evolving, an Afghan student asked, “Why is there no mention of women in these documents?”
With spring comes optimism, including around the challenge of COVID. We see people returning to art exhibitions, sporting events, visiting the famous cherry blossoms on the University of Washington campus, even attending the annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington D.C., most without masks. Others are returning to movie theatres, or coming out for ceremonial events like weddings, and funerals.
Unfolding horrific events in Ukraine coupled with brutal repression of dissent in Russia have caused me to insert another declaration that is equally relevant to any study of ethics, policy, and law, given the death and destruction we are witnessing because of the ambitions and grievances of Vladimir Putin.
In her article, The Quality of Judgment, Annie Searle takes a calculated risk in her discourse on judgement that might apply to health and safety, operational, political, regulatory, and the natural risk environment.
We enjoy stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end. We especially like clear resolutions to mark the end of a story. So, it’s no wonder that we’re itchy nearly two years later when the omicron variant has lengthened the COVID-19 story, and threatens re-entry to libraries, museums, theatres, restaurants, churches, schools, and sporting events. The omicron variant is at this time a law unto itself.
