Recent Commentaries

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A Force Multiplier
The sequester; Republicans blame the president; the president blames them back; the Catholic sex abuse scandal, same sex marriage, voting rights, gun control, Martha Stewart vs. Macy’s… AND the Pope says, “I’m Outta here!” Obstruction, power, intolerance, hubris – The Four Horsemen ride again. After my commentary on Downton Abbey, one reader wrote, “I am distressed by almost everything going on right now in...
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February 28, 2013
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Duty and Honor
Downton Abbey is the British-produced, period drama on PBSthat everyone… including me, is watching. It’s a character study of two classes: the lords and ladies of privilege that occupy the drawing rooms in the castle that is their home; and the household keepers who maintain all of that fuss and fury. It comes in weekly installments not unlike the monthly chapters written by...
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February 25, 2013
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An Issue of Credibility
This Sunday, Hollywood awards its highest honor, the Oscar, to top films and filmmakers of 2012. Zero Dark Thirty – a film depicting the hunt for Osama bin Laden – up for Best Picture, has become a political football due to what many have called gross inaccuracies. Taking a break from dealing with the budget, sequester, the debt and debt ceiling, Senators Dianne...
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February 22, 2013
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Lunch with Barny
Just off the 101 freeway in Carpinteria, California back from the road sits Rudy’s, a strip-mall-style Mexican restaurant where the tacos are tasty and burritos are muy bueno! It’s a place where my web designer Harold and I show up to meet… well, first a little backstory. Seventh grade and I’d just been hit with a stunner of a homework assignment: prepare a...
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February 20, 2013
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Words That Matter
In his book on George Washington, Richard Brookhiser writes that “all modern manners in the western world were originally aristocratic. Courtesy meant behavior appropriate to a court; chivalry comes from chevalier – a knight. Yet Washington was to dedicate himself to freeing America from a court’s control. “Could manners survive the operation? Without realizing it, the Jesuits who wrote them,...
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February 18, 2013
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Women
Skimming Huffington Post, something jumped out at me. “My company is more likely to be a success because of me!” There it was, on the Business page of HuffP just belowBreaking News about Warren Buffett buying Heinz, (he must love the ketchup). “According to the hard numbers – as presented in a new study by researchers at Dow Jones VentureSource (Women at the Wheel: Do...
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February 14, 2013
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Mutual Respect and Trust
The president’s State of the Union speech officially marks the beginning of a new federal cycle. What will that new beginning look like? How will those few, elected to represent the many, lead? Here are a few words for both Congress and the president to reflect on. At the end of Mr. Jefferson’s great Declaration are these words:“…we mutually pledge...
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February 13, 2013
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Changing the Culture
Another story under the media radar, but represents a continuing effort by some lawmakers to improve conditions in Washington in spite of obstacles. On January 23, Republican Senators Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and David Vitter of Louisiana re-introduced legislation calling for term limits on members of Congress. “Congress should not be a body of career politicians who have forgotten why they...
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February 8, 2013
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Good for Goodell
“Because of the principle that a calm sea and a prosperous voyage do not make news but a shipwreck does, most circulated news is bad news.” This piece of observational wisdom comes from writer, producer, director Norman Corwin in a story he shared in my book, What Do You Stand For? Owing to that insight, I found this story buried in...
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February 6, 2013
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The Panic Zone
There is a sixth dimension, well-known to man. It is a delusion as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is as unsubstantiated as myth and as unreasonable as deceit, and it lies between the depths of man’s passion and the intensity of his anxiety. It is a dimension of fear; a well-charted area of the mind which...
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February 4, 2013