Recent Commentaries

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Racism in a Hospital Bed
You are an ER doctor at a hospital who has just admitted a motorcyclist in his thirties who has sustained serious, but not life threatening, injuries due to drinking. You are scheduled to attend the patient who’s described as a “mean drunk.” This is what Dr. Pauline Chen faced while treating a patient. “I’m sure it freaked him out to...
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July 31, 2013
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Two Creeps
I can’t believe the words that come out of the mouths of two individuals who hold themselves up as responsible, trustworthy leaders worthy of putting their own interests aside in service to a larger purpose. Before I go any further, let me just state, for the record, that the only direct evidence of wrongdoing toward women by both San Diego...
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July 29, 2013
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Culture vs. Correctness
Growing up, my brother and I were devoted Disneyphiles. From Walt Disney Presents to Disneyland, we loved all the fantasies as well as the marketing. When Disney’s Song of the South aired on TV, we soaked up the colorful collection of Uncle Remus stories completely unaware of the film’s racial overtones. One story has Br’er Fox entrap Br’er Rabbit with a Tar Baby – a...
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July 26, 2013
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Military Justice
Once again, friend and colleague Colman McCarthy hits the nail on the head in his commentary regarding sexual assaults in the military. A former Washington Post columnist, McCarthy directs the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington and teaches courses on nonviolence at four universities and two high schools. It was Groucho Marx, and it usually was, who had it right:...
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July 24, 2013
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…to get beyond
On April 4, 1968, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy was campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. Scheduled to speak before a crowd in Indianapolis, Indiana, Kennedy had learned that civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed, but, despite concerns about riots, Kennedy chose to address the crowd. After being informed that the...
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July 22, 2013
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The Ethical Take
The E.T. examines the few, the questionable and the outrageous who refuse to take the road less traveled. Rolling Stone – Several chain stores, including pharmacy brand CVS will not sell copies of the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine to their customers in the New England area. Fire and Police associations are boycotting the magazine as well because this month’s cover features...
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July 19, 2013
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Malala’s Message
I have never heard such calm, yet resolute wisdom in the words of a sixteen-year-old. “I raise up my voice – not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.” Nine months after a Taliban terrorist shot her in the head returning home from school, Malala Yousafzai addressed a gathering of students from...
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July 17, 2013
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Say it Ain’t so, Joe!
“I’m through with ’em. I mean it, I’ve had it!” That’s what Yankee manager Joe Girardi told me in a recent conversation. With his team’s percentage a dismal .543, six-and-a-half games back of first going into Tuesday night’s All-Star game, the Yankee chief is justifiably upset. “Joe, I understand,” I said. “After adding Kevin Youkilis and Vernon Wells this year...
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July 15, 2013
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July 2013 Ethical Hero – John N. Baldwin
In his book, One Patient at a Time – A Medical Center at Work, Milton Zisowitz writes, “The battle for health and life in a great hospital, revealed in a dramatic case histories of people like…the young intern, only three months out of medical school, whose courage and split-second thinking saved the life of a fifty-year-old lawyer in an emergency...
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July 12, 2013
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Subtext
In his closing argument in the George Zimmerman murder trial, Florida state prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda told a jury of six women that Trayvon Martin  “is dead because another man made assumptions, because his assumptions were wrong.” That statement pretty much sums up the entire Martin/Zimmerman incident. From the outset, as soon as the shooting death of the 17-year-old,...
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July 12, 2013