Staff Pick: Which Books/Media to Read in Summer?

Originally submitted by: jadelay

Here's the dilemma. It's the season for the media to publish their summer book lists. Yes, we are quite behind. It is mid-summer. We haven't done the mediawise thing and offered an a2ethics.org list of works that challenge the mind and the body in all things ethical and unethical for summertime exercise. We have good excuses. Moral ones even. Bart Bund, a2ethics.org web director, has been starring in a play at Performance Network, called, "The Little Dog Laughed." (By the way, go see it!) Sandy Bottoms, barcode and Mz. Manners, our senior ethics correspondents, have been sitting in the hot tub think-tank reporting on ethics from the Oasis Gardens. And I, the becomingmoresenior ethics correspondent with each day, have been helping some friends train for the Chicago marathon. Which means that summer has been spent in a big blue chair resting for the next training run. So, my picks for the summer are a rather serendipitous assortment of media and books I have managed to get through since January. All of them pose ethics dilemmas or pose questions of differing moral worthiness. For what they are worth: 1. The movie "Copacabana," starring Carmen Miranda and Groucho Marx. I wanted to get "Silk Stockings" with Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire to honor Ms. Charisse, who recently died. But Liberty Street Video did not have "Silk Stockings," so I ended up with Carmen and Groucho. The movie features an unethical agent (Marx) who creates many dilemmas for his client and girlfriend (Miranda). The most stirring ethical issue for me, however, is whether Miranda's hats could ever be regarded as unethical. For example, does she have to water them? Don't they cause health hazards to the other dancers around her? And are the pineapples and other fruit on top of Carmen's hats locally grown? 2. "The Invention of the Curried Sausage" by Uwe Timm. I read this great book in March or so. It takes place in Hamburg,Germany at the end of WWII and describes the ethics of desertion, the harboring and safekeeping of someone who faces certain death if caught(in this case a member of the German military,not a Jew) as well as the dilemmas of collaboration and moral courage. And added to this: it offers some fascinating ideas about the moral meaning of local food, in this instance the name in the title, the curried sausage that locals in many cities in Germany eat and enjoy. 3. "How To Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend" by Plutarch. I read this essay every so often. It offers ethics advice that is, as the cliche puts it best, timeless and enduring. HTDFFF is counsel from an ancient, who spent some time cultivating the sycophants in Rome, and who came away from the experience still able to make lifelong friends. This work is particularly appropriate given our discussion on our a2ethics.org forum about how to talk amiably, responsibly and honestly to Republicans and Democrats in an election year. And finally, leading up to the Olympics in August, you might want to see the movies "Hero" and "The House of the Flying Daggers," both directed by Zhang Yimou. (Zhang is also the director of the Opening and Closing ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics.) They will prepare you for the singlemindedness of the Chinese elites in ensuring stability and security within China, while the rest of the world watches the 2008 Games.