Recent Commentaries

Featured image for “Right Call”
Right Call
All of us live with a devil and an angel. The path before us is to limit temptations from the one while striving to live out the virtues of the other. In view of the decision handed down yesterday by the National Basketball Association’s Commissioner Adam Silver, it seems clear that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been spending far too much time...
Read More
April 30, 2014
Featured image for “Welcome to Tombstone …South”
Welcome to Tombstone …South
Over the ricky ticky tinkle of a honky-tonk piano banging out “Buffalo Gals,” Georgia Governor Nathan “what-a” Deal sits down at his desk to sign a new piece of legislation into law. Watching the proceedings, a tall man with a steely-eyed gaze, dressed in black with matching hat quietly watches. “Well, boys,” Deal says, handing out souvenir pens, “Here she is, the Safe...
Read More
April 28, 2014
Featured image for “Want a Job Where You Can Make a Difference?”
Want a Job Where You Can Make a Difference?
Looking for a more rewarding job? Good with people? Good with numbers? We’re looking for a few thousand upwardly mobile individuals capable of enjoying perks like a company credit card, bonuses and absolutely no accountability. If you’re that kind of individual, you might just be our kind of employee! The IRS is hiring! That’s right, the Internal Revenue Service, our nation’s “finest” tax administrator,...
Read More
April 25, 2014
Featured image for “Solo”
Solo
What is your word worth? “Step by step I moved on. I kept telling me ‘Just fight, just fight,’ again and again. When I reached the summit ridge I could hardly believe it. With my altimeter I checked everything very carefully, I followed the ridge and I know I was on highest point.” That’s Swiss climber Ueli Steck, considered by...
Read More
April 23, 2014
Featured image for “The Ethical Take”
The Ethical Take
Why do I call Dan Piraro the Pope of Pop Culture? He doesn’t just “draw funny cartoons,” he creates visual essays that perfectly capture the zeitgeist of the moment. In that sense, he’s a contemporary Socrates, walking through our modern life questioning the status quo. The Vlad and Ed Show – For those of you who believe that reality shows...
Read More
April 21, 2014
Featured image for “Credit”
Credit
On Monday, Columbia University announced the 2014 recipients of the Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s most prestigious honor. Chris Hamby of The Center for Public Integrity – a Washington, DC-based non-profit – was awarded a Pulitzer for his report, Breathless and Burdened, on “how some lawyers and doctors rigged a system to deny benefits to coal miners stricken with black lung disease, resulting...
Read More
April 18, 2014
Featured image for “The Prize”
The Prize
On Monday April 14, it was announced that the Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspapers shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest award, in the area of public service for their reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program. However, the documents supplied to both the Post and Guardian were leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Last June,...
Read More
April 16, 2014
Featured image for “Five Words”
Five Words
At the time of his retirement in 2010, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court John Paul Stevens was the oldest Justice then serving and the second-oldest serving in the history of the Court. This excerpt, from his latest book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution first appearing in The Washington Post (Apr. 11), offers both clarity and context...
Read More
April 14, 2014
Featured image for “Lemons to Lemonade… and then some”
Lemons to Lemonade… and then some
It was the authority of an Ohio minister who first brought the power of positive thinking to the national stage. Norman Vincent Peale’s landmark book, The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, remained on The New York Times bestseller list for a staggering 186 consecutive weeks. While much of the philosophy lacked named sources and direct evidence, Peale claimed his work was...
Read More
April 9, 2014
Featured image for “Good for his soul, too.”
Good for his soul, too.
If confession is good for the soul – as all good Catholics avow – what about the Pope and his “staff”? Journalist and peace advocate Colman McCarthy always demonstrates a wise and clear-headed way of looking at issues. McCarthy is a latter-day Socrates always questioning the status quo to get at the truth. “The greatest way to live with honor...
Read More
April 7, 2014