The Michigan Daily - Friday, February 17, 1989 - Page 5 Speaker gives his ethical L rules as example to heed Student video examines civil BY MICHAEL LUSTIG Politicians must define ethical standards which they will strictly follow, a government official said last night. Doug Ross, director of the Michigan Department of Commerce, offered six rules of ethical conduct which he said he follows daily. He spoke last night to 100 pro- fessors, students, and participants in the "Ethics: The Cornerstone of the Public Trust" conference sponsored by the Institute for Public Policy Studies. "If it's illegal, it's unethical," Ross said, giving his first rule. An exception to this is an act of civil disobedience, where a person know- ingly breaks a law and welcomes any consequences that might come. Deception, Ross said, is ethical if it is done in a context which is un- derstood by all participants. For ex- ample, he said, in a football game, if a quarterback fakes a handoff, it's ethical because that's what a quarter- back is supposed to do. But if a person is running for of- fice, and lies about how he or she stands on an issue to try and win votes, that is unethical, he said. "If an action inhibits the ability of a public official to define what public interest is and then act on that definition, that's unethical," Ross, defining his third rule. He added that a public official must clarify how he or she is going to make decisions on issues in the beginning, and then be consistent about it. "If someone leads a despicable personal life," Ross said, "...and if it has no compromising political ef- fect, it is not politically unethical." Ross's fifth rule focused on per- sonal connections: "Associations or complicity with unethical political behavior is unethical." His last rule states that a person must draw an ethical line which they must not cross, because, Ross said, once the line is crossed, it is usually easy to "justify the next increment." Ross then took the rules and ap- plied them to a variety of situations and examples which he posed to the crowd at the start of the speech. For example, if a person campaigns for office as an opponent of abortion, and then, based on his or her con- science, votes for a pro-choice mea- sure, that person has deceived the voters, violated Ross's third rule, and has acted unethically. In a different example, Ross mentioned former presidential candi- date Gary Hart, who was caught having an affair with an actress. Hart's actions, Ross said, were not politically unethical, but gave in- sight into his character and helped voters make decisions about him. Cox ...speaks on ethics Bush rejects Soviet proposal for cease-fire in Afganistan WASHINGTON - President Bush said yesterday he hopes the fi- nal- pullout of Soviet armed forces from Afghanistan ensures "no more bloodbaths" in the war-torn nation. While applauding the troop with- drawal as "a new chapter in the his- tory of Afghanistan," Bush rejected a Kremlin call for an immediate cease- fire and arms embargo. Answering questions from a group of reporters in the Oval Of- fice, he said he was afraid rebels op- posing the Soviet-backed Kabul government would be left in a disad- vantageous position if U.S. assis- tance stopped. Just hours before Bush talked to reporters, the second-ranking official at the Soviet Embassy in Washing- ton had reiterated the Kremlin's call for a cease-fire. Minister-Counselor Yevgeny Ku- tovoy said that a comprehensive set- tlement of the strife in Afghan-istan depends for the most part on "a DavidX Continued from Page 1 for the Black American people to admit to themselves that they are a people pulled down to the lowest denomination... Black achievement is in the United States, Black his- tory is in Africa; and the people need to know that." David X linked the history of Black American people with their African heritage. "You have those genes in you," he told the audience, "so do not broadly based government with the tremendous amount of lethal participation of all warring parties plies left behind and then cu and without outside interference." supnort for the resistance and sup- ut off 3thus Bush demanded the Soviets stay out of Afghan affairs. "The Soviet Union had nothing to fear from the establishment of an independent, non-aligned Afghan- istan," he said in a written state- ment. "At the same time, the U.S.S.R. bears a special respon- sibility for healing the wounds of this war, and we call upon it to sup- port generously international efforts to rebuild Afghan-istan." Bush's comments came a day af- ter the final pullout of Red Army forces from Afghanistan after a nine- year occupation. Bush said he could not endorse the cease-fire and arms embargo pro- posal because he was concerned So- viet forces may have stockpiled weapons for the Soviet-backed gov- ernment in Kabul. "It would not be fair to have a leave an unacceptable imbalance," Bush said. State department Spokesperson Charles Redman said there has been massive stockpiling by the Soviets in recent months. "In the final days of the with- drawal, they left behind even more military equipment, including tanks, APCs and multiple rocket launch- ers," he said. Bush said the U.S. commitment to the Afghan people "will remain firm, both through our bilateral hu- manitarian program and through the United Nations' efforts to remove the mines and resettle the refugees and help reconstruct the war-torn economy. There are widespread fears that a struggle for control by competing guerrilla groups could throw Afghan- istan into a civil war. Et hiCS Continued from Page 1 As this happens to more people, he said, citizens lose their trust in government. People won't give trust to people "who feather their own nests," Cox said. The recent rejection of a Congressional pay raise after huge public outcry, Cox said, is an ex- ample of citizens saying, "We don't think anything of you people." For the executive branch of gov- ernment, Cox offered two recom- mendations. The Office of Government Ethics should get more power and have the ability to issue reprimands, he said. Second, Congress should tighten laws around the "revolving door." Now, former government officials are not permitted to lobby their for- mer employers for one year, but they can lobby other government agencies immediately. The law, Cox said, should pre- vent former officials from lobbying any agency for a period of time. Congress also needs laws outlin- ing what is unacceptable behavior, he said. Burnham Associates 543 Church Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (313) 761-1523 Now Leasing for the Fall! BY VERA SONGWE Albert Culler and Linden Harri- gan, two Black students from the Schomburg Satellite Academy High School in the Bronx, yesterday gave a presentation on the civil rights movement seen from the eyes of students. It included 25 minutes of inter- view footage with random subjects. The movie's aim was to educate people on what really happened in the '60s in the South and to show that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn't the only person who fought for civil rights, but that many of the marches were organized by students. "Before we took this class all we Satanic Continued from Page 1 parts of the Koran, the holy book of the Muslim religion. The tales of two characters, Mahound and Jahilia, allude to a significant incident in the life of Mohammed, recorded by two early Arab historians. But this inci- dent was later discredited by com- mentators of the Koran and remains discredited today. Currently, western beliefs account this incident as "the lapse of Mohammed." The second controversial aspect of the book is the author's choice of the name "Mahound" because it re- sembles the name Mohammed - the prophet of the Muslim religion. The significance is that Mahound is traditionally a name given to satanic figures; here it could represent a negative portrayal of Mohammed. According to The New York Times Book Review, the story oc- curs in a dream within a fiction story, twice removed from reality. mnov,1T knew of the civil rights was Martin Luther King and the March on Washington," said Harrigan. "The movie came out of trying to look for ways of getting students involved, and letting them see and talk to regular people who fought for the civil rights," said Pam Sporn, a teacher at the school. "By being in a project they have to internalize the material, so they understand it bet- ter," she added. Among the people interviewed was Doug Harris, film producer and Matt Jones, a freedom singer during the civil rights movement. Both were members of the Students' Non- violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the civil rights era. Harris said that that many of the main leaders who started the different protests were killed and not often spoken of. Cecilia Green-Cosa, lecturer at the Residential College, said after- wards: "I thought it was absolutely wonderful. I think it is appropriate to have high school students show us history." T-SHIRT PRINTERY WE CAN TURN YOUR SKETCH SI TO QUALITY T-SHIRT A A2'S FINEST& FASTEST U . ONE WEEK SERVICE 1002 PONTIACTR. S994-1367 U of M P.O. NUMBERS ACCEPTED think you are anything less." David X said most ethnic groups are named after their place of origin, but the word "Negro" does not tie Black Americans to any single homeland. He went on to establish the ori- gin of the word Negro, which was used to refer to Blacks when they were taken as slaves. Negro originates from the Greek nekro - meaning death or ceme- tery. David X criticized books and scholars for continuing to use the word interchangeably with the word "Black." "We are a people who have been written out of history when it comes to consequential events that took place in the history of mankind." David X urged the audience not to be ashamed of who they are, but to understand and accept themselves. Only then, he said, would they be able to understand their personalities. He said Blacks should teach their children about slavery and the real horrors of the era, like Jewish people do of the Holocaust, so they can better understand their current situa- tion. 1001 S. 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