This is the seventh 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). Neiman’s discussion of Daniel Ellsberg, the government official who let us know

Today I came across the <a href="http://www.mrsc.org/index.aspx&quot; target="”_blank”">Municipal
Research and Services Center of Washington</a> (State) website. MRSC is
"private, non-profit organization based in Seattle," whose mission is
"to promote excellence in Washington local government through
professional consultation, research and information services."<br>
<br>

Back in Chicago, where in February the mayor called for the inspector
general (appointed by the mayor) to have jurisdiction over the city
council (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/camels-back-truly-broken-or-just-more…; target="”_blank”">my
blog post</a>), the council is now moving toward a council-wide vote on
its own inspector general.<br>
<br>

What
do you do when an official discriminates against you by sicking a local
government inspector on you? This question was raised by David Owens in<span> </span><a href="http://sogweb.sog.unc.edu/blogs/localgovt/?p=2220&quot; target="”_blank”">a post on the
NC Local Government Law Blog.</a><br>
<br>

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