I agree in general with David's comments, without knowing much about the
specifics of the situation, but I wanted to post a cautionary opinion
about online petitions. I just about never sign them. First of all, they
usually have no effect. Second, when they do, their effect is often a
bad one. More importantly, mostly they refer to very complicated
situations about which the signers know little. In the larger world, We
certainly know that major institutions have fired people for unjust,
idiotic or even evil reasons, but I also know of people who have been
fired, or have had their lives ruined, through online petitions or
shaming for offenses that perhaps did not deserved that. (A recent
example, http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/shame-on-you-tube-1.3086407 )
It's a big enough challenge to act well in one's own life, and to treat
well the people with whom one comes in immediate contact, and Lord knows
i have not always succeeded in doing that. It is all too easy to sign
something in outrage over some situation or other. The issues about
which I feel I know enough to have an opinion -- we should use less
fossil fuels, for example -- are not going to be affected by online
petitions anyway.
Do we initiate and sign online petitions to make ourselves feel better,
or to actually make things better? As one-liner pieces of wisdom go, I
am a great admirer of Gandhi's "Be the change you want to see ion the
world."
At the very least, it seems to me that someone who cares about this
curator should try to do the work a good journalist would do and get to
the bottom of the situation. An authoritative analysis that could show
the firing was really wrong might actually help.
Fred Camper
Chicago
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