Recent Commentaries

Featured image for “The Examined Life”
The Examined Life
Ever since I began searching the Internet I started collecting quotes. Particularly interesting was to see the connective tissue of both knowledge and character that would emerge. It didn’t take long to discover a pattern – that true wisdom knows no period in history, religion, culture, race, age or gender. Here are just a few to consider: “What you do...
Read More
May 2, 2011
Featured image for “Confirmation Bias”
Confirmation Bias
No sooner had the White House released the long-form birth record of President Obama than speculation began anew by “birthers.” Is it real or fake? Why did it take so long to produce? “It raises far more questions than it answers,” said Joseph Farah, editor-in-chief of WorldNetDaily and grand-high-exalted poobah of “birthers.” (Where’s the Birth Certificate? by Harvard Ph.D. Jerome Corsi...
Read More
April 29, 2011
Featured image for “Reliable Sources – BREAKING NEWS!”
Reliable Sources – BREAKING NEWS!
I’ve talked about media analyst Howard Kurtz before. A journalist who specializes in how and what the media reports, Kurtz has hosted the CNN show Reliable Sources since 1998. Along with a panel of journalists, Kurtz has discussed issues like the media’s overblown coverage of Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan. Most recently, he’s questioned the media’s fixation of businessman Donald Trump who’s...
Read More
April 27, 2011
Featured image for “The man who <em>might</em> be President”
The man who might be President
Spoiler Alert: This one’s for fun, not ethics. According to an April 12th poll of possible GOP presidential candidates that includes former Governor Mike Huckabee, former Governor Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann, and Representative Ron Paul of Texas, businessman-real-estate-developer-reality-TV-star Donald Trump (you better sit down for this) is currently...
Read More
April 25, 2011
Featured image for “Building Trust and Confidence”
Building Trust and Confidence
Earlier this week I gave a keynote address at a conference of security professionals – a group whose integrity is embedded in their DNA. “This Code of Conduct and Ethics signifies a voluntary assumption by members of the obligation of self-discipline above and beyond the requirements of the law… members intend to maintain a high level of ethics and professional...
Read More
April 22, 2011
Featured image for “Philadelphia Story”
Philadelphia Story
Several years ago I was in Philadelphia speaking to about 400 administrators and trustees of a large teacher pension fund. At the end of the talk, I left the group with a story that asks, in essence, if we all had to make decisions with our families looking over our shoulder, would we be comfortable, proudeven, of the decisions we make?...
Read More
April 20, 2011
Featured image for “Will Demagogue for Food”
Will Demagogue for Food
Let’s all bow our heads for a moment of silent prayer for the soon to be departed right Reverend-Professor Beck. Moment over. For those who have not heard the news, Glenn Beck announced last week that he will be leaving Fox News at the end of the year… (with five months notice in the bank). “Not long ago,” Linda Feldmann writes in...
Read More
April 18, 2011
Featured image for “House of Pyne”
House of Pyne
In this excerpt from “Shameless,” I discuss 60s talk show confrontationalist Joe Pyne.   In 1966, I sat before a TV to watch a strange, new kind of entertainment unlike anything I had ever seen before.  It began like this… “The Joe Pyne Show, a fascinating forum of funny, famous, infamous, way out, and factual confrontations and interviews with real...
Read More
April 15, 2011
Featured image for “One from Corwin”
One from Corwin
On July 10, 1985, among hundreds of newsworthy events around the world, were the following: Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel laureate, charged into an angry mob to save a suspected police informer from being burned to death. An Israeli court convicted 15 Jewish terrorists of murder and other acts of violence against Arabs. A Turkish supertanker was struck by an Iraqi...
Read More
April 13, 2011
Featured image for “Winning (!) (?)”
Winning (!) (?)
If you go to YouTube type in: “Charlie Sheen, Winning.” You will see almost two minutes of the actor’s rambling account of what has become the latest cult mantra of lunacy. What remains unclear is whether Sheen’s statement is voiced as an exclamation or a question. I’m not sure Sheen knows himself. That would never happen with Donald Trump. The...
Read More
April 11, 2011

Read Some of the Most Recent Articles
The Latest... And Often Greatest
It Was Important Then. It is Important Today
Freedom of speech in America is under attack, not only when people are denied the right to speak, but when lies, intimidation and the deliberate...
When Political Identity Replaces Ethical Judgment
The political and cultural landscape has become a minefield of conflicting beliefs, many now rooted less in public policy than in personal identity. One of...
Principles Matter.
A few nights ago, I was watching The Way We Were, a film I’ve seen more times than I can count. This time, a single...
All the President’s Men 2.0
“Politics had infiltrated every corner of government—a strong-arm takeover of the agencies by the Nixon White House.” —Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President’s...
The Threat to November Is Already Here
“Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”—George Washington’s...
Jon Ossoff and the Conscience of Atticus Finch
I’ve written about Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff before, but after watching his questioning of Jay Clayton, President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence (DNI),...