An affair to work around?

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Feb 21, 2002

NEW YORK (AP) -- Most human resource professionals and corporate executives say they would avoid getting involved in an office romance, but their organizations generally don't have policies that address these relationships, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management and The Wall Street Journal's executive career site, CareerJournal.com.

The respondents included 558 human resource professionals and 663 corporate executives. Seventy-five percent of the human resource professionals and 59 percent of the executives said their organizations had no policies about office romances. Nearly 81 percent of human resource professionals and 76 percent of executives said workplace romances were dangerous because they can lead to conflicts at the office. "It's natural that when people work together closely romantic feelings sometimes emerge," said Helen Drinan, president and CEO of the society, based in Alexandria, Va. "That is why organizations need a workplace romance policy to help set guidelines for what is and is not appropriate."

Tony Lee, editor in chief and general manager of CareerJournal.com said employees who become romantically involved might be viewed as unprofessional, especially if they publicly display affection.

Reviving a true blue American

NEW YORK (NYT) -- On the cover of his album Ragged Old Flag, Johnny Cash stands resolute, staring directly at the viewer and pointing to an American flag that is torn and tattered but still flying. His face looks as if it could grace Mount Rushmore. Like the flag behind him, that face is weathered and battle-worn, but nonetheless defiant. "She's been through the fire before," Cash intones on the album's title track, alluding to the flag and the country it represents, "and I believe she can take a whole lot more."

When Ragged Old Flag was first released in 1974, Cash intended the flag's scars to symbolize the shocks of American history, from the Revolutionary War to more contemporary upheavals like the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. When the album was reissued on Dec. 11, three months to the day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it took on an unmistakable new meaning. The flag on the cover clearly evokes the one recovered at the World Trade Center and recently displayed at the Winter Olympics, a stirring image of the country's determination to survive a devastating blow.

What better artist to summon all that is worthwhile in the American spirit than the redoubtable Cash? Since 1997, he has struggled with autonomic neuropathy, a severe neurological disorder that has brought him close to death. For that reason, Cash was not feeling strong enough to participate in the various music-industry events that were organized immediately after Sept. 11. But with the rerelease of Ragged Old Flag, along with his 1972 concept album, America: A 200-Year Salute in Story and Song, Cash made an eloquent statement of his own.

Interest in Cash has intensified at a time when his music -- with its patriotic themes and dark undercurrents, its independent- mindedness and its spiritual reach -- seems eminently suited to the cultural mood of the country. Tuesday is Cash's 70th birthday, and to commemorate that event, Columbia/Legacy has begun an extensive reissue campaign that draws on the dozens of albums Cash recorded for Columbia between 1958 and 1993. This month saw the release of The Essential Johnny Cash, a superb two-disc collection that also includes eight of the legendary tracks (like I Walk the Line and Big River) Cash recorded between 1955 and 1958 for the influential Sun label, where Elvis Presley also established his career. In addition, remastered versions (with additional, contemporaneous tracks) of five of Cash's albums that have been out of print for years will be issued on March 19: The Fabulous Johnny Cash (1958), Hymns by Johnny Cash (1959), Ride This Train (1960), Orange Blossom Special (1965) and Carryin' On With Johnny Cash and June Carter (1967). Five more of Cash's albums will be reissued in July.

While they represent just a small portion of Cash's recorded output, the five albums that will come out next month demonstrate how all of the qualities that have made Cash an American icon were present at the very start of his career. Most tellingly, in their stylistic range and ambition, they dramatize Cash's continuing conviction that he should be guided by no one's musical lights but his own.

When Cash left Sun Records for Columbia in 1958, he cited the label's refusal to allow him to record an album of spirituals as one reason for his departure. That particularly surprises younger listeners, for whom Cash is primarily known for being the forbidding Man in Black, a precursor of hip-hop stars for whom courtrooms, boardrooms and the top of the charts are equally familiar. Hymns by Johnny Cash, in fact, was Cash's second Columbia release. "I could not convince Sam Phillips about how important that music was to me," Cash said, referring to the founder of Sun Records. "His answer always was, `I don't know how to sell hymns.' I understood that Sun was a very small company. But I didn't want to be restrained. I didn't want to be held back from doing anything that I felt was important for me to do on record or as a writer."