9:59 PM


Above: Dr. David P. Schmidt Associate Professor of Business Ethics  at Fairfield University and Elizabeth

Welcome back to my blog.....Recently, I went to a picnic with the Rotary Club and heard an incredible lecture about business ethics.
Ethics is a hot topic right now after the greed and speculation from wall street. I told Dr.Schmidt that I've been working on a book for the Arabia Steamboat Museum and back then the same thing was happening which resulted in the Panic of 1857.


Scmidt's lecture gave me the perfect thought to tell myself every time I feel overwhelmed with my project.


It has to do with the Kew Gardens incident when a women was stabbed and afterwards witnesses said they thought someone else would have called the police. It took her hours to bleed out-Hard to believe, isn't it?
 


“On the evening of March 13, 1964, a young woman was assaulted and stabbed to 
death in front of her home in the Kew Gardens district of Queens, New York. The victim was twenty-eight years old. Her name was Kitty Genovese.. . .
 [T]he events took place in the full view (and hearing) of most of the residents of the victim’s immediate neighborhood. Over thirty persons acknowledged, after the event, that they had observed what was going on. The murder itself took well over half an hour to accomplish, during which time the murderer took himself off for a brief interim and then returned some quarter of an hour later to complete the job. The victim’s screams were fully audible for the whole period she was under attack as were her cries for help during the period of the murder’s absence. But no one went to her aid.”
Geoffrey Brennan and Loren E. Lomasky, Democracy and Decision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 125.


There are 4 questions to ask yourself when you see something that needs to be done and here's my example with the Arabia Steamboat Museum..

1. Is this serious?  Yes,  the Arabia Steamboat Museum is very important.

2. Do I have the skills to accomplish this? My background in college sure helps and I've had many mentors. At times I lack experience, however, so far, I have raised the bar and purposely put myself in many new situations. I look at it this way what I don't know how to do, I'll make a plan to learn it or find someone who can help me.

3. Am I in close proximity?  Yes.I am, 1,392 miles (22 hours driving time) away from the Arabia Steamboat Museum but I am on the east coast where most of my research libraries are.... and the internet is helping more and more.

4. Am I the last resort? There are lots of people out there who are as smart as me, but if I think I am the last resort, my doubt is dispelled and I will get on with it. So, I will invest all my effort in getting this book done and do the best job I can.