In January 1985, Michael Savage submitted a personal service advertisement to SOF. After several conversations between Savage and SOF’s advertising manager, Joan Steel, the following advertisement ran in the June 1985 through May 1986 issue of SOF:
GUN FOR HIRE: 37 year old professional mercenary desires jobs. Vietnam veteran. Discrete and very private. Body guard, courier, and other special skills. All jobs considered.
Cerebral palsy limits Steven Bradley’s use of his legs. He uses forearm crutches for short-distance walks and a wheelchair for longer distances. Standing for more than ten or fifteen minutes is difficult. With support, however, Bradley can climb stairs and get on and off a stool. His condition also restricts the use of his fourth finger to, for example, type, but it does not limit his ability to write and he completed two years of college. His grip strength is normal, and he ca lift heavy objects. In 2001, Bradley applied for a “greeter” or “cashier” position at a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Supercenter in New Jersey. The job descriptions stated, “No experience or qualification is required.” Bradley indicated that he was available for full or part-time work from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. any evening. His employment history showed that he currently worked as a proofreader and that he had previously worked as an administrator. His application was rejected, according to Janet Daugherty, the personnel manager, based on his “work history” and the “direct threat” that he posed to the safety of himself and others. Bradley claimed, however, that the store refused to hire him due to his disability.
Ernest Price suffered from sickle-cell anemia. In 1997, Price asked Dr. Ann Houston, his physician, to prescribe Oxycontin, a strong narcotic, for the pain. Over the next several years, Price saw at least ten different physicians at ten different clinics in two cities, and used seven physicians at then different clinics in two cities, and used seven physicians in three cities, to obtain and fill simultaneous prescriptions for Oxycontin. In March 2001, when Houston learned of these activities, she refused to write more prescriptions for Price. As other physicians became aware of Price’s actions, they also stopped writing his prescriptions. Price filed a suit in New Jersey state court against Purdue Pharma Co. and other producers and distributors of Oxycontin, as well as his physicians and the pharmacies that had filled the prescriptions. Price alleged negligence, among other things, claiming that Oxycontin’s addictive nature caused him injury and that this was the defendants’ fault. The defendants argued that Price’s claim should be dismissed because it arose from his own wrongdoing.
During the 1960s, Aluminum Co. of America (Alcoa) designed, patented, manufacture, and marketed a closure system for applying aluminum caps to carbonated soft drink bottles. In 1969, Alcoa sold a capping machine to Houston 7-Up Bottling Co. On June 3, 1976, James Alm suffered a severe eye injury when an aluminum bottle cap exploded off a thirty-two-ounce bottle of 7-Up that had come form the Houston 7-Up Bottling Co. Alm sued Alcoa, alleging that, as the manufacturer, Alcoa had a duty to warn consumers of the dangers of a possible bottle-cap explosion. Alcoa argued that it had not had a duty to warn Alm because it had not manufactured or sold any component part or the final product that injured Alm. Alcoa had mentioned possible cap explosions in the machine users’ manual, wall charts, and technical information that it had provided to the Houston 7-Up Bottling Co.
In the 1970s, South Carolina Recycling and Disposal, Inc., (SCRDI) ran a hazardous waste disposal and recycling operation. A number of chemical companies (so-called generators) brought their wastes to the SCRDI facility. Handling of wastes at the site was itself hazardous; 7,200 fifty-five-gallon drums of hazardous substances – including materials that were toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, explosive, and highly flammable – accumulated. Stacked without regard to the source or the compatibility of the substances within, many drums deteriorated to the point that their contents spilled onto other drums, mixed with other leaking substances, and oozed into the ground. This caused noxious and toxic fumes and a number of fires and explosions. The EPA began clean-up operations and sued some of the generators (plus others) for the costs. The generators argued that they should not have to pay because there was no evidence linking their specific wastes to the problems. The court granted summary judgment for the EPA, ruling that the EPA needed to show only that the generators sent waste to the site at some time.
Steven is the Academy-Award-winning director of Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and many other films. CleanFlicks, LLC, filed a suit in a federal district court against Steven, fifteen other directors, and the Directors Guild of America. The plaintiff asked the court to rule that it had the right to sell DVDs of the defendants’ films altered without the defendants’ consent to delete scenes of “sex, nudity, profanity and gory violence.” CleanFlicks sold or rented the edited DVDs under the slogan “It’s About Choice” to consumers, sometimes indirectly through retailers. It would not sell to retailers that made unauthorized copies of the edited films. The defendants, with DreamWorks, LLC and seven other movie studios that own the copyrights to the films, filed a counterclaim against CleanFlicks and others engaged in the same business, alleging copyright infringement. Those filing the counterclaim asked the court to enjoin (prevent) CleanFlicks and the others from making and marketing altered versions of the films.
Most people who are confused about justice, integrity, ethics, right or wrong, philosophy choose to believe that it’s all relative. They fail to perceive reality objectively and claim it’s ok to perceive reality subjectively. What this entails is an absolute inability to comprehend that it’s possible to term a person’s actions as right or wrong. To such people everything seems right when viewed from the doer’s point of view. What Hitler did was right and what Einstein did was right too. They ask who is to decide the right and wrong for all the individuals on this planet? They fail to realize that the right is that which is required for sustenance of an individual’s life by his own ability and not by looting(which is wrong). This is only possible if one perceives reality objectively. This is also why such people refuse to judge and claim that they are never judgmental, which is true, because they lack the ability to judge, they are inept at perception. To judge one must always be focused on reality. One must also realize that one is free to ignore/distort reality but not free to avoid the consequences of such a lethal choice. Nature won’t allow that. It takes courage to perceive reality objectively and is a continuous process which ends only when one dies. It requires one to think openly, actively and objectively.
‘Greed and selfishness’ are concepts much maligned in our society. So first lets define them properly with reference to the 1913 edition of Websters (a very thorough dictionary)
Greed: An eager desire or longing
Selfish: 1 Caring supremely or unduly for one’s self, 2 Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from love of self
Do those terms still sound so bad? Well the meanings have been changed by the way people have used it over time and greed is now taken to mean ‘reprehensible acquisitiveness’ (mirriam-webster) whilst the second meaning of selfish, given above, has been dropped from most dictionairies.
So I am going to explain how we can think of these terms, under the general heading “self interest”, by illustrating it with a story (paraphrased from its source).
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Which is what freedom of speech is all about. As long as what an individual has to say doesn’t encroach/violate on any other individuals right, he/she has a right to express that thought , irrespective of how many individuals get offended. The individual offended can choose to boycott the offender/organization/product , opt for legal recourse if available, protest peacefully.
This is surely the most controversial topic one can discuss………..why? Why do god and religion evoke such strong defensive feelings in most men? Why do most human beings seek god? What is god or religion? How does it help?
For the teen years of my life I always wanted to believe in god……I always had doubts , but in spite of those doubts I wanted to believe in god…….I tried many things……..rituals , idol worship , praying , spiritual books ,etc………and at times it did make me feel better…….even though the doubts persisted , I tried to ignore them………..I wasn’t overtly religious , but I tried to believe……
