Month: June 2014

No surprise, I’m alive. We mostly all are, in spite of the egregious media hype over the Mayan calendar.

Most importantly, Bobby McDonald is alive and hopefully may be for the next two years. He was very ill earlier in the week and had a lot of fluid taken out of his lungs. An x-ray promoted a cat scan and turned up lung cancer, advanced. He was moved to Kaiser San Rafael and has been in intensive care for the past two days. An earlier, bleak report had him on death’s bed, but today’s oncologist found him feeling much better and he may come home in a couple of days and live anywhere from a few weeks to two years. sigh.

I worked on web sites mostly today, for the Vineyards Inn and Rose Ranch Organics. Fun but frustrating. I’ve been having more grief with passwords and mail sites that don’t work as advertised. I can’t get new mailboxes on Colleen’s ipad., Argggh.

Sonic net said nobody was around because of their office party, at least until 5 p.m.

I went to Nigel’s End of the World party at 5 p.m. –an early arriver, for sure, and saw a lot of good Kenwood People, including the Peters, bob alderson, and a whole lot more, even Richard Wenn and his lady friend. the party got too warm and too loud. I became dizzy talking to Gary Rosenfield and left early. Dropped in the VI, but it too was hot and noise. Doug del Fava and tom petarian were heading down to Murphy’s to hear (goddamn memory is failing fast) Jamie Jameison blues band with Dennis Cordellos. I was in no mood for that trip and came home to listen to Katie’s message (see above).

I’m drinking a rum and eggnog. the dizzy is probably sugar overdose by now.

June 28, 2014

Postscript; Bobby died two years ago of cancer that killed him within two months of his retirement. It was sudden and vicious, but he died at home in the arms of Katie. So sad. Bobby was full of life and would have really enjoyed his retirement, traveling and playing golf and generally becoming a curmudgeon.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of “professional” and “professional ethics” in the past year, trying to come to grips with something I feel strongly about but haven’t quite identified yet. I’m pretty sure it’s the lack of the substance I’m feeling more than an abundance of it.

As I have absorbed the concepts over my lifetime, I now hold that professionals are those who have achieved a level of knowledge and competence in the application of that knowledge to be able to offer their services in their respective fields for pay or honor or even personal pleasure. A key to professionalism is that it concern a fairly specific, even if broad, field of knowledge; i.e., medicine, law, science, or other body of acquired knowledge that exceeds what would be commonly available to everyone in a culture.

Fields such as medicine and law are relatively easy to define, while others, such as journalism and accounting are much more difficult to circumscribe, involving so many gray areas. Yes, no, I don’t know aren’t always available resolutions to professional questions.

As a journalist purveying news to the general public, I consider myself a professional and I also consider that there are standards I need to apply in my public writing.
– consider public versus private writing — can I be less strict in what I write if it is not for public consumption? Gray areas.
– opinion is valid so long as it is so declared.

The internet brought up questions to me from the onset, mostly about source and validity of the content that became available. As an inter-university data exchange, the initial offerings were highly regarded, if weighted by scientific skepticism properly held for any set of data being exchanged. As the content grew from university to private supply, sourcing became more and more problematical.

The difference between the New York Times and my blog is huge. The paper owns a city block in New York City, has been in business since 1851, and has demonstrated it’s responsibility to factual reporting long enough to be trusted by those seeking news of the world. Biased? Perhaps, but in an institutional manner that is self-acknowledged and professionally handled in print.

While I have a demonstrable record of writing, it is known to very few people and not easily put to any test. You may like or detest what I have to say, but you have no reason to trust anything I say other than your personal knowledge of my professional standards and personal failings.

What I think is most important to being a professional is adhering to an external set of principles — guidelines and ethical considerations — that are particular to the profession. In medicine, the practitioner is under the elemental caveat to “Do no harm.” A lawyer’s first professional duty is to the client, not himself or any other party at interest.

A journalist is held to a wide variety of standards of ethical fact checking, news gathering and disclosure of points of view. It’s not that any professional cannot have opinions, points of view, holes in the knowledge base — it’s just that they are bound to acknowledge them and not act on them.