This is the sixth in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”"><i>Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</i></a> (Princeton, 2008).<br>
<br>

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/1087&quot; target="”_blank”">my first blog post</a> relating to Susan Neiman’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”"><i>Moral
Clarity:
A

<br>
In the hands of politicians, government ethics can be wielded as a
double-edged sword, as can be seen in recent events in Mandeville (LA),
a city of 12,000 just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans.<br>
<br>

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts
inspired by reading Susan Neiman's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”"><i>Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</i></a> (Princeton, 2008). <br>
<br>
One problem Americans have with respect to

Local governments accepting gifts from those who do business with them
— contractors, developers, and the like — can cause some serious
problems, even when they have to be approved by neutral bodies. This
can be seen by what has happened in Middletown, CT, a small city not
far from where I live.<br>
<br>

This is the third in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman's book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”">Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</a></i> (Princeton, 2008). One of her topics is how an

The mayor of a city of 46,000 people announces that the city would
change its policy requiring annexation to obtain water and sewer
service, and then negotiates an agreement with a developer to provide
him with utilities. In the middle of the negotiations, the developer
gives the mayor's campaign a $10,000 contribution. An ethics

This is the second in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan
Neiman’s book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”">Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</a></i> (Princeton, 2008).<br>
<br>
A controversial aspect of government ethics involves intentions or

Ethics charges are often not the end, but rather the beginning of a
process to improve government ethics. Take a recent instance in Los
Angeles.<br>
<br>

I recently read Susan Neiman’s book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”">Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</a></i> (Princeton, 2008) and found a lot
there
of value to government ethics, even though government ethics doesn’t
generally involve the