Showing posts with label Punishment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Punishment. Show all posts

April 21, 2013

Dastardly Bastards

I sit here this morning filled with indignation for the victims of a series of brutal monsters who have committed horrific acts against children (and adults). 

Last week we had the horrible terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon which left 3 dead (including an innocent 8-year old boy), almost two hundred wounded, and13 people who lost limbs (including leg amputations below the knee of a husband and wife recently married just last August ). 

Then yesterday, in the Wall Street Journal, two more news events about:

1) The raping of a 5-year old girl (YES, five) in India--4 months after the gang rape on the bus that left a young women tortured and dead.  This 5-year old was beaten and raped and found screaming for help and in pain with devices left inside her!  The suspect a 30-something man is left on the run. 

2) The trial of a late-term abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell, charged among other things with murdering 7 infants who SURVIVED (initially) abortions he performed.  This doctor or staff is said to routinely "gouge the infant's neck with scissors to sever the spinal cord" (a method he called "snipping").  His offices were a horror lab with "blood on the floor," urine in the air, and "fetal remains haphazardly stored throughout the clinic--in bags, milk jugs, orange-juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers."  -- This is one sick person!!

While there are many people who are good, what loose nut or evil inclination drives others to terrible inhumane acts is a question that haunts us throughout the ages. 

I remember learning in Jewish day school that some people act worse than animals, because while a wild animal kills for food or to protect themselves, people kill and torture for the sake of it. 

Leon Kass in the article on Gosnell points out from his readings that "as science [and technology] advances, morals don't necessarily improve; [and moreover] that the opposite might well be the case" as people's faith in science above all else and belief in materialism as a cure of all ills replaces belief in G-d and the true mission of our souls in life. 

What punishment can these people get that will really fit their crimes--when the children are left snipped, beaten, raped, and dead? 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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February 14, 2013

Three Beautiful Sayings


In the last few weeks, there are three beautiful sayings that have stuck out in my mind and I wanted to share them with you:

- Materialism and Relationships: 

 "It's not about what you have, but about who you have."

- Sin and Punishment:

"You're not punished for your sins, but by your sins."

- Creation and Creator:

"All things serve the will of the L-rd"

I think if we keep these in mind and use these to guide our everyday actions, we will make better choices and be better people for it. 

Hope you appreciate the importance of these sayings as much as I do and find them useful in your lives. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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December 29, 2012

Rape Outrage!

On the Night of December 16--coming home from watching a movie at the New Delhi Mall, a 23-year old woman was savagely gang-raped and her male companion, who tried to defend her, was beaten while on a bus being driven around the Indian capital for 45 minutes!

I iust want to stand with those protesting against the barbarism of the people who brutally gang-raped, tortured, and grotesquely inserted a metal rod inside her, causing her such bodily damage that even a team of eight specialists at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore that specializes in multi-organ transplants, could not save her. 

The woman had such severe internal injuries that most of her intestines had to be removed, and according to CBC News, she suffered from organ failure, a lung infection, as well as brain damage. 

After the rape, torture, and beatings, the victims were stripped and thrown off the moving bus.

It is sick and evil that the driver not only stood idly by and did nothing to help her, but has been charged as well in the actual rape!

I am deeply saddened not only by the gang rape, but also according to the Daily Times that they happen with such frequency that they are "rarely [even] reported in the Indian press." 

This is another wake up call for people of good conscience to stand against those that commit evil and to not be silent in the face of such atrocities.

The cries of this woman, and other victims of violence like her, can be heard throughout the world. 

She will not be forgotten, and to those savages may justice be done--in this world or the next by the all-mighty G-d who hears our prayers.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Daniel Crompton)

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December 15, 2012

Walking In All Shoes

Thinking about life and death and the concept of reincarnation. 

While I have heard the belief of some that reincarnation is the ultimate justice machine--if you treat others well, you come back well off, while if you treat them badly, you come back in their situation. 

So the classic example, would be if you have the opportunity to give charity, and do so, genoreously, then you are rewarded in a next life with riches, but if you are miserly, then you come back poor--to learn the lessons of charitable giving. 

However, I wonder if this concept goes even much further.

Does our journey ultimately takes us not just to occupy some positions if life, but rather to every role and status, illustrative of all peoples--so that we learn from the eyes of everyone. 

The world  is round and the number of perspectives around it are as varied as the people, races, cultures, and nations they come from. 

As the saying goes, "don't judge me until you walk a mile in my shoes," perhaps we are indeed given the opportunity to walk in a large representative sample of those. 

When the see the world not from where we sit today in life, but from where others are perched, we can get a whole new perspective on issues and ideas--we can learn true empathy, caring, respect, and justice.

Almost like having G-d's vantage point, we can learn to see the world from a multi-cultural perspective, where each person, tribe, and nation is infinitely valuable--where each holds the key to a perspective and lesson that we must all learn before our journey comes to a conclusion. 

Live life and learn well--there is much to see, hear, and experience, and no one has all the answers or is all righteous--like a large mosaic, we all have a piece. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Fernando Stankuns)

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November 18, 2012

When All Is Not Green




Are their programs successful or not, is everything okay on their staff, will they--without fudging the numbers--meet their performance goals and targets (if they have any), and so on. 

People are afraid if they made a mistake or something isn't working as intended that they will be in trouble.  

Maybe they will be yelled at, lose authority and power, be sidelined, demoted, or even fired; and their organizations may be downsized, outsourced, consolidated with another, or outright eliminated. 

So people hide the facts and the truth--as if, what they don't know, can't harm me.

So everything appears copasetic in organization-land!

But the truth is we need a solid guidepost to know where we are going, which paths are safe, and which are fraught with danger--and that is anchored in open and honest communication. 

There is a great story about this in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (15 November 2012) about how in 2006, when ex-Boeing executive, Alan Mulally took over as CEO of Ford--and Ford was bleeding red ink, facing their largest loss for automobiles in history of $17 billion, that at the executive Thursday morning meetings, the performance scorecard for their initiatives "was a sea of green."

Here the company is bordering on financial collapse, but the executives are reporting--all clear!

The story goes that Mark Fields, head of Ford's North American business stepped up and showed the first red revealing a problem with a problem tailgate latch on their new Edge SVU that would halt production. 

With the room filled with tension, Alan Mulally rather than get mad and castigate or punish the executive, what did he do--he clapped!

Mulally said: "Great visibility. Is there anything we can do to help you?"

And what ultimately happened to Mark Fields, the executive who told the truth about problems in his area of responsibility?  

Last month, "Ford's board elevated him to chief operating officer," which analysts read as a sign that he will be the next CEO when Mulally is supposed to retire at the end of 2014.

The bottom line is that we cannot fix problems if we can't identify them and face up to them with our people. 

While we need good data and sound analysis to identify problems in the organization, problems will remain illusive without the trust, candor, and teamwork to ultimately come to terms with them and solve them.

I love this story about Ford and think it is a model for us in leadership, communication, and performance management. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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September 9, 2012

Cries In The Night

Scream
Last night, we heard screaming. 

We were woken out of our sleep, by a blood-curdling cry.

I ran to the window to see what was going on, but the street seemed empty.

There was yelling mostly from what sounded like a young man--or boy.

He was saying things like "get away from me."

That turned into "don't hurt me."

Which ended in "H~E~L~P!  Somebody call the police. He's beating me..."

The police came quickly, yet we still heard the craziness.

"He abuses me. He beats me." and then "He tried to throw me off the terrace."

The boy was literally begging the police to take the man to jail.  

He seemed completely traumatized--unreconcilable--and kept repeating himself again and again. 

Until finally everything went abruptly silent and "the show was over," but the impact lingered in the warm, humid air of the night. 

People disagree, argue, and fight--they are only human; not every moment can be a "Leave It To Beaver" hour--loving and copasetic.

We all understand that the pace of life and stress gets to people and sometimes, they say and do things, they do not mean or intend--and some which they do, but that they are sorry for afterwards. 

Again, people are "only human"--or as we learned in Jewish day school, there are no angels here on this earth. 

But the blood curdling cries we heard last night, left us up, sitting and holding each other--and trying to make sense of it all. 

There is too much suffering out there--some of it we hear, some of it we don't, and some of it we tune out and ignore. 

As a child, I learned that the prayers of the community rise up together to beseech G-d almighty for his mercy and blessing. 

Sometimes, I wonder, whether the cries of anguish of the people who are hungry, sick, raped, and abused, also rise up in the same way--as one "communal" single cry for help or more as a chorus of people in need.

In the dark, at night, everything somehow seems worse, and while I tried to explain to the kids what this world is about...sometimes, it is hard to understand or even attempt to explain. 

Are these things tests, challenges, opportunities for growth, or punishments--only G-d really knows. 

But hearing (and seeing) people "losing it"--and their pain that you can hear mostly only in the dark of night--can put doubts and fears about the cruelty of some human beings into any soul.

These are memories that etch into our very consciousness--scaring and maiming, but hopefully also leaving us to appreciate every peaceful and loving moment bestowed on us.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to PalmSpringsDude)

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May 28, 2012

Solitary Social Creatures

We've all had the feeling of being alone, abandoned, and feeling down and out. 

As social animals, we crave being with others--even the biggest introverts out there have got to have social interaction. 

Sometimes, when young people live alone--before finding their significant others or old people live alone--after losing their significant others, there is a deep pain of being isolated in the world...almost as if there is no meaning itself in being alive.

Yet, others seem to adjust in a way to living alone, as long as they can reach out and get social interaction in other ways--family, friends, colleagues, classmates, at clubs, religious institutions, and more.  

Either way--"No man is an island," as John Donne wrote in 2003. 

Being alone is torture. 

No really.

The Wilson Quarterly (Spring 2012) in an article entitled "The Torture of Solitary," by Stephanie E. Griest is about the purpose and effects of solitary confinement as rehabilitation and as a punishment. 

Coming out of the Middle Ages, where physical torture was common--dungeons instead of jails, cages instead of cells, racks and rippers instead of rehabilitation and yard recess--the Philadelphia Quakers in the 18th century, had the idea that solitary confinement was humanitarian.

They believed that "what these prisoners needs...was a spiritual renovation. Give a man ample time and quiet space to reflect upon his misdeeds, and he will recover his bond with G-d.  He will grieve. He will repent. He will walk away a rehabilitated man."

And so prisons (like the 1829 Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia) were built with entirely isolated cellblocks and prisoners were engulfed in silence and aloneness.  

Any rejection of the mental torture of isolation through any form of communication--such as pipe clanging or shouting through flushing toilet pipes--could lead to yet again physical tortures--such as "strapped inmates into chairs for days at a stretch, until their legs ballooned" or even putting their tongues in "iron gags."

The article concludes from the effects of solitary that "the physical pain of these tortures--common in many prisons at the time-paled beside the mental anguish of solitude."

From the horror-mangled looks on the faces of the prisoners, Dickens wrote: "I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body."

I cannot imagine the pain and horror of these tortures by design--physical and mental. In all cases, the scars of the flesh and soul are probably indescribable and outright haunting to even the imagination. 

Eventually the horrible effects of solitary and the high-cost of prison cells housing individual inmates, resulted in Eastern State Penitentiary being converted into a museum in 1971 with the "The crucible of good intention" finally shuttered.

From the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Miller, we read:

"A considerable number of prisoners fell, even after a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others, still committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community."

"In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court nearly declared the punishment unconstitutional;" it is now used mostly for "short-term punishment for exceedingly bad behavior."

Currently, there are more than 60 prisons across the country with solitary cells housing up to 25,000 prisoners. 

This is a puzzle--what do you do with offenders that are too dangerous to be with others, but as human beings too fragile to be alone?

What is striking to me is how something as "simple" as putting someone by themselves and incommunicado can drive them literally nuts!

Almost like we cannot bear to be by ourselves--what is it about ourselves that we must turn away from, be distracted from, and causes such inner horror?

Our minds and bodies need to be active to be healthy, this includes being social--being alone and bored in solitary has been shown to cause people to hallucinate, go insane, and even kill themselves.

Yet still people recoil from other people--emotionally, they may be turned off or nauseated by them; physically, they may fight, separate, or divorce and end up for a time by themselves again--people make the decision that it is better to cut your familiar loses, then go down with a ship filled with corrosive and abusive others.

I imagine Buddhists meditating in the mountains or in an open field--alone and yet at peace--but this is self-imposed and temporary and more like a "time out" in life. 

Then I see humans languishing in dungeons and in solitary confinement--physically and mentally tortured--they scream out in the void--and I see G-d reaching out to finally take them from their immense suffering to be reborn and try their lives again.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Deisel Demon)


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February 18, 2012

The Evil That Men Do

This time I barely know what to write, except that I have been very upset the whole week.

I watched this multiple award-winning movie called The Stoning of Soraya M.

Have you seen it yet? 

It was one of those life-changing events for me that taught me about (in)justice, adversity, and purpose.

It is a 2008 film that was adapted from a book by a French-Iranian journalist. 

It is based on a true story about a journalist whose car breaks down in a remote Iranian village.

There, he learns from a decent, well-respected women, Zahra about the nefarious plot and stoning death (read murder) the prior day of her niece Soraya M. 

Soraya is targeted by her abusive husband Ali who wants to divorce her in order to marry a 14 year old girl in the village. 

When Soraya refuses the divorce knowing that she and her children will be destitute without Ali, she suffers violently, both verbal and physical abuse. 

Soraya is asked by the mayor and Mullah of the village to help (as a job) a recently widowed man with his house and son and she is kind and generous to them--she appears a genuinely good person, the diametric opposite of her sorely evil husband.

However, Ali uses Soraya's kindness to the other family to turn against her and he concocts a story of infidelity by Soraya and the man; he cajoles and threatens the others to go along and bear (false) witness against Soraya. 

Soraya is condemned to death by stoning in a mockery of a "trial" behind closed doors that she is not permitted to attend or even be represented at--the mayor, Mullah, and her own father decide she is too die for her treacherous infidelity to her husband--based on a complete fabrication!

The men and boys in the village go "crazy" chanting for her death, that G-d is great, and preparing carts of stones for the carrying out of the (in)justice. 

Soraya has a heartfelt goodbye with her two young daughters, while her two older sons--who are turned against her by Ali--prepare to participate in the stoning. 

Aunt Zahra tries everything to save Soraya, but cannot stop the crowd from carrying out their false retribution on her. 

They march Soraya to a dirt yard, where the hole has been dug for her.

They tie her hands, and bury her to the waist.

She is given the opportunity to say a few last words and asks completely bewildered as we all are, how could her neighbors, friends, and family--who know her (the real her, the truth of who she is), do this to her. 

But just when you think, the story will end--in her death or sudden saving--the movie surprises with a blow by blow showing of her brutal stoning death.

Her own father throws stone at her, but misses. Then her evil husband Ali takes aim and hits her twice right in the head and she is bleeding from a hole there. Then her own sons.  The "religious" Mullah.  Only the widowed man she had helped, refuses. All the other townsmen and boys throw stone after stone for what seems endless minutes as her face, head, torso, spine is crushed, shredded, torn.  

When her husband checks to see if she is finally dead, she is still somehow able to partially open one eye--he jumps back in horror that the "witch" is still alive and then she is overwhelmed by rocks from everyone all at once, putting the final end to this poor woman's life. 

Soraya was given one of the worst deaths that can be imagined--long, painful, literally "in your face" and by virtually all the people she loved and cared about--and all based on a complete lie!

To show the woman that their infidelity will not be tolerated, the men make a Colosseum-style event to the gruesome death and then add to that punishment that Soraya is not allowed to be buried, so that the dogs end up eating her remains.

After watching this movie--this life event--that happened to Soraya and G-d knows how many other helpless women who are violently mistreated, abused, and even murdered, I could not get the image of Soraya buried waist-deep in the ground, taking hits stone by stone, and bleeding out from her mangled body. 

I did not sleep (well) this week and I am still emotionally recovering from this movie. 

Thank G-d, the journalist escaped with the recording to tell the story of Soraya M. and all the other tortured women (and men) out there.

I know that I am deeply shaken by the graphic portrayal in this movie and of the injustices that are done, the evil that seems to prevail, and the pain that is left behind.  

Only faith in G-d's higher purpose for us--to learn and grow through all adversity--and of some ultimate justice and the reward of the righteous and punishment of the evil can fill this wound where I myself feel like I've been stoned too. 

(Source Photo: here)

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October 23, 2010

Beyond The Stick

Over a number of years, I’ve seen different management strategies for engaging employees. At their essence, they typically amount to nothing more than the proverbial “carrot and stick" approach: Do what you’re supposed to do and you get rewarded, and don’t do what your superiors want and you get punished.

Recently, the greater demands on organizational outputs and outcomes by shareholders and other stakeholders in a highly competitive global environment and souring economy has put added pressure on management that has resulted in

the rewards drying up and the stick being more widely and liberally used.

Numerous management strategists have picked up on this trend:

For example, in the book, No Fear Management: Rebuilding Trust, Performance, and Commitment in the New American Workplace, Chambers and Craft argue that abusive management styles destroy company morale and profitability and should be replaced by empowerment, communication, training, recognition, and reward.

In another book, Driving Fear Out of the Workplace: Creating the High Trust, High Performance Organization, Ryan and Oestreich confront how “fear permeates today’s organizations” and is creating a pandemic of mistrust that undermines employee motivation and commitment.

I can’t help but reflect that the whole concept of managing employees by the carrot and stick approach is an immature and infantile approach that mimics how we “manage” children in pre-school who for example, get an extra snack for cleaning up their toys or get a demerit for pulling on little Suzy’s hair.

As leaders, I believe we can and must do better in maturing our engagement styles with our people.

Regular people coming to work to support themselves and their families and contribute to their organizations and society don’t need to be “scared straight.” They need to be led and inspired!

Monday’s don’t have to be blue and TGIF doesn’t have to be the mantra week after week.

People are naturally full of energy and innovation and productivity. And I believe that they want to be busy and contribute. In fact, this is one of life’s greatest joys!

Leaders can change the organizational culture and put an end to management by fear. They can elevate good over evil, win the hearts and minds of their people, and put organizations back on track to winning performance.


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October 12, 2009

Timeouts for Professionals—Ouch

Experts have been teaching parents for years to discipline children, when needed, with timeouts. This is seen as a combined rehabilitative and punitive method to deal with “bad” behavior. The idea is that the child has time to reflect on what they did “wrong” and how they can do better in the future. It also functions as a way to sort of “punish” the child to teach them that there are consequences to their actions, like having to sit in inaction for a period of time. Of course, time-outs also serve the purpose of a “cooling off” period for both parent and child when things are heating up.

Interestingly enough, like many things in life, adults, in a sense, are just big children. And the time-out method doesn’t end in childhood. This method of discipline is used in the workplace as well.

I have seen and heard story after story of people at work who do something “wrong” (whether as defined by objective policy or more often it seems by some subjective management whim) and they get sidelined. They get moved off into a corner—with the proverbial dunce cap on their heads—where they can do no harm. They are for all intensive purposes ignored. They are not assigned any meaningful or significant work. They are neutered.

Unlike a child’s timeout though, an adult timeout may be for a period of time or this may be permanent—no one knows in advance.

Just as with a child, the adult timeout is both punitive and possibly rehabilitative. Punitively, it is supposed to take the “problem” worker out of the larger workplace equation, and it therefore hurts their career, personal and professional learning and growth, and their self-esteem. In terms of rehabilitation, I imagine some may think that like a child, the adult will have time to reflect on what they did wrong—if they even know what they did—and commit to never doing it again—to be a better employee in the future.

Well, why don’t employers just help the employee to do better in their jobs by coaching, mentoring, training, providing constructive feedback, counseling and if necessary taking other corrective actions--why the childish timeouts?

Perhaps, managers think it is easier to just “ignore” a problem—literally—or to handle it quietly and subtly, rather than “confronting” the employee and having to work with them over time to improve.

Unfortunately, this erroneous thinking—the desire to handle it the “easy way out”—is reinforced by often-archaic performance management systems that do not distinguish between employee performances. They neither meaningfully reward or recognize good performance nor discourage poor employee performance.

Certainly, it is important to have fairness, objectivity, and controls in any performance management system, but this needs to be balanced with managing our human capital in a way that is good for the organization and good for the employee.

We cannot continue to manage our employees like children. We cannot punish people for honest mistakes at work that were unintentional, not malicious, and done in good faith and best effort in performance of their jobs.

Instead, we need to manage people with maturity. We need to identify where the issues are, emphasize where appropriate, understand what can be done to correct problems, and work with employees on how they can learn and grow.

Alternatively, we need to handle true performance issues and not bury them indefinitely in timeouts. Our organizations and our employees need to move past childish modes of performance management and handle people decisively, with measured intent, and with absolute integrity.


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