The sacred cow of protection from unwanted sales calls has been breached. “Telemarketers,” the New York Times writes, “increasingly are disguising their real identities and phone numbers to provoke people to pick up the phone. ‘Humane Soc.’ may not be the Humane Society. And think the I.R.S. is on the line? Think again. Caller ID, in other words, is becoming fake ID…....

In November of 1963, I was a High School freshman in New York. It was just after lunch and we’d only been back in class a short time when our Algebra teacher, Mr. Freeman was called into the hallway by the vice-principal. The door remained open and my desk had a perfect view of the hallway. That’s when I noticed...

England’s finest Prime Minister and Statesman Winston Churchill famously said, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” Considering the ticking clock deadline for Congress’s bipartisan supercommittee to find a path to cut at minimum $1.2 trillion from the budget over ten years, Churchill’s words seem sadly prophetic. “It wasn’t so much of a...

It’s Tuesday May 23, 2006 and I’ve just arrived at my hotel. After traveling all day from California, I’m in New York to give a report to the public via the media on Honesty and Trust in America. In the Spring of 2006, with a host of ethics scandals involving CEOs, politicians, athletes and other celebrities you might think that my...

We are facing a serious issue of intergenerational ethics when it comes to the proliferation of nuclear power. For the value of power today, we pass on the problems of nuclear waste to future generations. Yesterday, I was invited to attend a talk by Daniel Hirsch, Lecturer on Nuclear Policy at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Considering the...

As founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation David Krieger’s goal is monumental: the elimination of all nuclear weapons on the planet. But his passion and commitment is equally massive. I met David several years ago at a conference and soon after we got together for lunch. That lunch not only turned into support for his cause but a mutual...

Like a lot of fans of Penn State, I was shocked to learn of the allegations of sexual assault on at least 8 young boys over a 15-year period by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. However, I was completely unprepared to learn of head coach Joe Paterno’s lack of action when he first heard of the abuse in 2002...

These are the 12 members of the Congressional “super committee” charged with finding $1.5 trillion in debt savings over the next ten years. They are: Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas (Republican and committee co-chair), Sen. Patty Murray of Washington (Democrat and committee co-chair), Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland (D), Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona (R), Sen. John Kerry of...

That’s the deadline facing the bipartisan Congressional committee on a plan to reduce the country’s deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next ten years. “I am worried you’re going to fail – fail the country.” That’s what Erskine Bowles recently said to the committee. Bowles was one of the co-chairs of the president’s fiscal commission originally set-up to...

Watching the various Occupy protests around the country caused me to take another look at my Honesty and Trust report from 2006. I found this conclusion from Jamie O’Boyle of The Center for Cultural Studies and Analysis: “Most Americans have moved beyond thinking of violations of honesty and trust as the problem of a few ‘rotten apples,’ but instead view our major institutions as a...