Solution-oriented opinion: Mexico, North Korea, New Orleans, Gulf oil spill, ethics

May 19, 2010

1. Ways to help Mexico as its president visits Obama

From The Miami Herald: "Traffickers are fighting to control the drug supply into the US. Never have the two countries faced a common enemy as powerful and as dangerous as these gangs. This puts a premium on mutual efforts to combat narcotics gangsters, requiring both leaders to go beyond the customary expressions of friendship and work to defuse the tensions that threaten to drive Mexico and the United States apart."

2. China as the peacemaker with a dangerous North Korea

From The Japan Times: "By keeping a door open to North Korea's leaders, China is making a substantial contribution to regional peace. This is bold diplomacy – for which China is given little credit – at a highly sensitive moment."

3. Post-Katrina, New Orleans is still getting help for a better police department

From The New Orleans Times Picayune: "The U.S. Department of Justice's decision to intervene in the New Orleans Police Department is a pivotal moment in the nascent efforts to reform one of the nation's worst police agencies.... Mayor Mitch Landrieu wants the process to lead to a formal court order requiring substantial police reforms."

4. Why not cleaning the Gulf oil spill may be the best thing

From The New York Daily News: "Decades after the Exxon Valdez spill, the technology used to clean up spills is virtually unchanged: barges, booms, burning, dispersing, scrubbing....The problem with that is, these methods weren't effective then, and they aren't now."

5. Developing trust in America can start with better outreach by corporations

From The Atlanta Journal Constitution: "We are now seeing corporations develop new initiatives that involve their customers in volunteer and philanthropic mobilization that can create new scale and impact.... A majority of Americans gives corporate America a D or F for honesty and ethical conduct. Yet businesses play a vital role, and ... they can play an increasingly important role in community problem solving."