Alzheimer’s is a disease that robs an individual of their personality one piece at a time. Particularly insidious is the fact that some of the personality traits that once appeared as petty irritations of life, can grow to become acts of shocking intolerance. This brings me to the recent news about Donald Sterling. The L.A. Clippers owner went on a racist rant...

From Donald Sterling to May Angelou (what a stretch), The Take looks at the top ethics stories (and one memorial) of May. Rochelle, Rochelle – First Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling signals (May 23) that he may empower his wife, Rochelle, to handle the sale of his NBA team, then… Whamo! Less than a week later, ESPN reports (May 28) that,  » Read more about: The Ethical...

How do you make sense of the senseless? As soon as I logged-on to The Washington Post Saturday morning, I stared in disbelief at a headline reporting that the latest school shooting had occurred just twenty minutes from where I live. From late Friday night to Monday morning, our small community continues to be shaken by the fact that we have joined...

Shortly after the grenade blast, Marine, Lance Cpl. William Carpenter recalled a loud ringing in his ears and then something warm. “I felt like warm water was being poured all over me from the blood coming out,” Carpenter said. In order to save fellow Marine, Lance Cpl. Nick Eufrazio, Carpenter used his body to repress an enemy grenade. Despite sustaining...

It’s OUT-RAGEOUS! Where is Rachel Maddow? Where is Fox and Friends!? Where is House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa? Subpoenas should be flying! What’s outrageous? California Chrome! No, not the car show on sunny California beaches. I’m talking about that upstart thoroughbred that creamed the competition in the Kentucky Derby and decimated the field in last week’s Preakness.  » Read more about: Sniffgate...

Jeb Stewart Magruder, one of the last key individuals in the scandal known simply as ‘Watergate’ which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, died last week. Magruder eventually confessed his role in the botched break-in of National Democratic Headquarters at the Washington, D.C. hotel in the early 70’s. However, decades later, Magruder added another interesting twist to the...

In an interview for Spanish channel Univision (Sept. 20, 2012), President Obama stated: “I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration.” The Washington Post Fact Checker wasted no time in giving the president’s statement three out of four Pinocchios. “Clearly, ATF didn’t develop the practice of gun walking under the current...

Operation Fast and Furious was the name given by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) “…to a group of Arizona gun trafficking cases under Project Gunrunner that began in the fall of 2009,” according to a report by CBS News. President Obama took office in January of the same year. CBS News journalist Sharyl Attkisson offers one of the clearest narratives based...

“Facts are stubborn things…” – John Adams On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre began as a flash mob of citizens who surrounded and heckled British soldiers quartered in the city. With the local citizenry up in arms about the incursion of British troops by England’s King George, the growing crowd of Americans-to-be threw snowballs, sticks and ultimately stones at...

According to a survey by the Gallup organization (Aug. 2013), “Most Americans (80 percent) believe that today’s schools should teach… critical thinking… to children.” “Critical thinking,” as defined by The Critical Thinking Community, “is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide...