Morals

If the horrific garment factory collapse last month in Bangladesh has any silver lining, it is the response from more than 30 of the world's leading apparel companies - including Benetton, PVH, Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, Inditex (Zara), Marks & Spencer and Tesco - to sign an agreement to protect the safety and lives of that nation's workers, who make the companies' products. The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh is a historic advance over the voluntary private factory monitoring that has tragically failed to prevent the recent disasters in Bangladesh and in places around the world where clothes are stitched for the global market.

A new government report singles out Los Angeles County's Twin Towers as having one of the worst rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual assault of any men's jail in the nation. One in 20 inmates held there reported that he had been victimized by another inmate while in custody, far higher than the national average of 1 in 60, according to the Department of Justice. The report is just the latest reminder that sexual abuse remains an intractable reality of incarceration in this country. Congress took a first step toward confronting this behavior in 2003 when it passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The landmark legislation required the Justice Department to adopt new detention regulations that are expected to take effect in August.

Your article about Cal State Northridge trustees siding with students and faculty who object to Carl's Jr. because its founder supports the anti-abortion movement begs for comment, especially when a student phrases the issue as a question of good business and bad morals. CSUN students who equate Carl Karcher's anti-abortion stand with bad morals should rethink their position. Since when can espousing the survival rights of innocent, unborn babies be considered bad morals? Yet these CSUN students were successful in getting CSUN's trustees to reverse their decision to buy a Carl's Jr. franchise for the campus, which would have earned a yearly profit of $50,000.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The number of women and girls jailed by Afghan authorities for "moral crimes" has risen by 50% in the last year and a half, an alarming statistic that reflects the Afghan government's need to step up efforts to protect women's rights, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The New York-based rights group cited Afghan Interior Ministry statistics showing a sharp increase in the number of women and girls imprisoned for "moral crimes," from 400 in October 2011 to 600 in May 2013.

Re "Religion at School," Ventura County letters, Feb. 11. Letter writer Catherine Antolino Mervyn wants "religion and therefore morals" taught in public schools, but whose morals? Just hers, or do we teach everyone's--every religion, every denomination, every philosophy and of every era? There are some of us who remember about a time when slavery was considered moral. There are religious people who still believe that it is moral to settle religious disagreements with war. Mervyn, it seems, believes that there is only one set of morals, but the facts would seem to indicate otherwise.

I have a response to your Nov. 12 editorial, "Working With All Creeds," about the recall of fundamentalist Vista school board members. Forty-five years ago when I was a teen-ager, my church taught me sex belonged within the protective boundary of marriage. My high school taught me sex outside marriage brought social stigma, unwanted pregnancy and disease. "Church and state" were in agreement and no one's creed was offended. Was there a "narrow ideological agenda" in my classroom? Was the school board divided over condom distribution, abortion referrals and such?

In the midst of a global recession, religious leaders are looking beyond the recent regulatory fixes and bailouts aimed at repairing an ailing financial system. They are questioning the underlying assumptions of a market economy that they say has lost its moral bearings. Last week, Pope Benedict XVI issued an encyclical, a papal pronouncement, that decries the divide between rich and poor.

Except for a few bits of softness, Steigerwald is due great praise for saying the truth about how we deal with substance abuse problems. As one who has been in the program trenches, I feel that legalization would be a catastrophe--as opposed to decriminalization of certain aspects. Perhaps one day we'll realize that our definitions and approaches are a great part of why things get worse. PAUL H. LOGAN MD Los Angeles

"Conscientious Objector" (June 8) appears well-intentioned, but the quiz had very poorly designed questions. One pitted duty to children against duty to government, in the guise of "temptation to cheat." Another had survival in conflict with fairness, again in the guise of "cheating." Duty, fairness, survival and truth are all vital ethical principles. They need to be clearly presented and a balance found between them, not lumped together. Ethics can keep us sane--when we are clear on the values at stake.

I appreciate the June 25 article that included me. However, the public was deceived when the article portrayed me as a teenager with no moral values. "Summer Job Blues" failed to include the vital information that would have eliminated any misconceptions. When asked about recent interviews, I shared my experience about the survey at Linens 'n Things. One of the questions asked if I would report a relative who was stealing. My response was no, but only because I was not given room to explain myself.

If the horrific garment factory collapse last month in Bangladesh has any silver lining, it is the response from more than 30 of the world's leading apparel companies - including Benetton, PVH, Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, Inditex (Zara), Marks & Spencer and Tesco - to sign an agreement to protect the safety and lives of that nation's workers, who make the companies' products. The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh is a historic advance over the voluntary private factory monitoring that has tragically failed to prevent the recent disasters in Bangladesh and in places around the world where clothes are stitched for the global market.

CAIRO - His phone doesn't ring and his charts are gloomy. But every day Mostafa Ismail, a financial broker with a hangman's demeanor, steps into the Egyptian stock exchange hoping for positive blips. They are rare in a nation where revolution has brought two years of political instability and turned "investor confidence" into a quaint phrase from a more prosperous era. "The market has declined as far as it can go," said Ismail, his tie loosened, a string of numbers before him. "There's no one to trade or buy or sell with.

An old coach named Fred "The Fog" Shero once described the relationship between Canadians and their national pastime this way: "Hockey is where we live. … Life is just a place where we spend time between games. " It could feel like that in Southern California over the next few weeks. This is hockey's time to shine with two local teams in the hunt for the Stanley Cup, the Kings fighting to repeat as champions and the Ducks riding one of the better records in the league. The way things have gone for the Lakers and Clippers, and with our baseball teams struggling, the sport from up north could win some new fans.

SEATTLE - It seemed like progress for Joe Blanton, who delivered his first quality start of the season Saturday night, but even after matching Seattle ace Felix Hernandez for six innings, the Angels right-hander took no solace in a 3-2 loss the Mariners in Safeco Field. “I'm not pleased, not with four walks,” said Blanton, who has averaged only 2.4 walks per nine innings in his career. “I don't like walking guys no matter what. I can live with myself when guys are smacking the ball all over the place and I'm throwing strikes.

"Graceland" is a tense, twisty cinematic artichoke brimming with moral complexity and intriguing shades of gray. Writer-director Ron Morales masterfully juggles this brisk thriller's various puzzle pieces to create an unpredictable portrait of desperate times - and desperate measures. Marlon Villar (an excellent Arnold Reyes) is an earnest family man and longtime chauffeur to corrupt Filipino congressman Manuel Chango (Menggie Cobarrubias). Marlon finds himself careening down the rabbit hole when a kidnapper posing as a cop abducts his daughter, Elvie (Ella Guevara)

"Home Run" is the heartfelt and deeply religious story of a baseball star's struggle with alcoholism and the Christian faith-based recovery group that gets him through. The first moments seem promising as images of a peaceful stretch of farm country fill up the screen. A weathered red barn sits in the distance next to a sprawling white farmhouse with a wraparound porch. But as the camera goes in close, something is wrong - the red is too red, the worn spots too worn. The metaphor is seriously overplayed and we are only in the first inning.

According to the recent article in the Los Angeles Times about Michael Josephson and his Institute for the Advancement of Ethics, Josephson sees a very bleak future due to the lack of morals young people have today ("Did We Rear a Bunch of Moral Mutants?" Oct. 11). I am within the age group targeted by Josephson. I consider myself to have very high morals. Although I cannot dispute Josephson's statistics, I will argue with where he places the blame. To put the blame on parents, teachers and employers isn't fair.

If abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell is found guilty of homicide, he will be unique among murderers-for-hire: He set his fees based on weight. "The bigger the baby, the more he charged," a grand jury explained. It recommended he be charged with eight counts of murder - one patient, seven babies. Despite what amounted to a blackout at many media outlets until last week, you've probably now heard at least some of the details. According to the grand jury report, Gosnell's Philadelphia "clinic" was a filthy abattoir.

Say what you want about the man and his films, but Tyler Perry is nothing if not unshakably Tyler Perry. The air of self-assurance bordering on arrogance that wafts from movie after movie as he confidently delivers his specific blend of light comedy and heavy dramatic moralizing can be strangely admirable. If only all of us could know what we do so clearly. In his latest film, whose full title is (deep breath) "Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor," he adapts his own stage play to the screen.