Wednesday’s New York Times (Mar. 6), offered two stories, appearing side-by-side, that present a contrast in decision-making between two high-profile executives. One uses rationalization while the other employs reason. The two company figureheads I’m talking about are Marissa Mayer, newly installed CEO of Yahoo, an Internet search engine company, and Martha Stewart, author, magazine publisher and founder of Martha Stewart...

In 1951, nuclear testing continued with a 1-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat near Las Vegas, Nevada. President Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his command in the Far East. Senator Estes Kefauver headed a Senate committee investigating interstate crime, and… …on one bright and shining day in June, John Nelson Baldwin, graduating from Pelham Memorial High School in...

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of It’s Ethics, Stupid! While it’s great to acknowledge a milestone, sadly, five years and 712 commentaries later, ethics scandals seem to be more widespread than ever. In March, 2008, my own survey found that every day, on average, 4.5 ethics-related stories appeared in the news – more stories than all other areas of concern by...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

The president’s State of the Union address signals the start of a new federal cycle. What will this new chapter bring? How will the elected few guide the nation? Here are some thoughts for both Congress and the president to consider. At the close of Mr. Jefferson’s Declaration are these immortal words: “…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,...