THE INANE AND THE URBANE
"On the merits" is one thing. But, under, behind, within the merits, is quite another; is where the action is. Merits" are material like men. Ethics are material like women.
They are man-made. Whatever is man-made is subject to man's ways. Man's ways can be devious, duplicitous , perfidious, untrue.
When I applied to be a judge in Jackson County, Missouri, in the late 1980s using the famous "Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan," I purposely did not submit the customary package of political endorsements and accolades which that vaunted process claims to decry, discourage in its rules.
That I had not done so was the subject of curious comment before the selection panel before whom I spoke. Other judicial aspirants had submitted the exact materials that the rules and theory of our "merit selection process" claimed to disdain. Naturally, I did not become a Jackson County, Missouri judge .
Merits are material not spiritual. Ethics must be as material as well.
Speaking of ethics, in the 1990s, I took a notion to run for the Kansas City Board of Education, given its difficulty in properly educating its charges amid whirling judicial, political and economic interests.
The process initial application process was supposed to be "confidential," until one formally submitted a petition with requisite signatures to run for the seat.
Here again, the mere receipt of a "confidential" application by me to run for a seat from an employee, at once, triggered a torrent of public speculation from its then-School Board Chairman. I chose not run.
So the very next time that someone endorses the merits or the ethics, remember that in our materialistic dimension and society, they do not really mean it, but publish such to eliminate the inane, not the urbane!
THE INANE AND THE URBANE
"On the merits" is one thing. But, under, behind, within the merits, is quite another; is where the action is. Merits" are material like men. Ethics are material like women.
They are man-made. Whatever is man-made is subject to man's ways. Man's ways can be devious, duplicitous , perfidious, untrue.
When I applied to be a judge in Jackson County, Missouri, in the late 1980s using the famous "Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan," I purposely did not submit the customary package of political endorsements and accolades which that vaunted process claims to decry, discourage in its rules.
That I had not done so was the subject of curious comment before the selection panel before whom I spoke. Other judicial aspirants had submitted the exact materials that the rules and theory of our "merit selection process" claimed to disdain. Naturally, I did not become a Jackson County, Missouri judge .
Merits are material not spiritual. Ethics must be as material as well.
Speaking of ethics, in the 1990s, I took a notion to run for the Kansas City Board of Education, given its difficulty in properly educating its charges amid whirling judicial, political and economic interests.
The process initial application process was supposed to be "confidential," until one formally submitted a petition with requisite signatures to run for the seat.
Here again, the mere receipt of a "confidential" application by me to run for a seat from an employee, at once, triggered a torrent of public speculation from its then-School Board Chairman. I chose not run.
So the very next time that someone endorses the merits or the ethics, remember that in our materialistic dimension and society, they do not really mean it, but publish such to eliminate the inane, not the urbane!