Of all the high-profile people I’ve had the opportunity to interview, Santa Claus was just about the toughest “get” (next to the Dalai Lama). First of all, he’s incredibly busy in the weeks leading up to Christmas. However, he consented to give me an early interview if I would stop leaving multiple, corny messages on his iPhone. I also promised that I’d...

Miracles come in many forms. Sitting in a rice paddy in Vietnam in 1968, infantryman Dennis Haines heard the cries of a baby or small child, “Just as I looked towards this hooch,” Haines recalls, “I saw what appeared to be a door swing open and a flash.  The next thing I remember was my buddy John cradling me, telling...

The Greeks called it arête. Traditionally translated as “virtue,” its central meaning is excellence. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, arête is applied to courage and strength, especially when exhibited in competition and this is one common dimension. But it’s more. The third aspect of responsibility, the pursuit of excellence, carries an ethical component when others count on our effectiveness at a given...

A conversation with landscape architect Isabelle Greene led me to discover that integrity can take many forms. Like the framework of the gardens she designs and creates, her principles are likewise, clear and exacting. Isabelle is the granddaughter of Henry Mather Greene, of Greene & Greene Architects, pioneers of the early Craftsman movement in Southern California. “These principles and ideas seem...

There’s a telling moment of decision-making in Thirteen Days– the film chronicling the events by President Kennedy and his administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In a private exchange with his friend and advisor, Kenny O’Donnell, Kennedy reflects on the unthinkable – a nuclear holocaust with Russia – and declares, “We’re going to do whatever we have to do to make things...

Nothing is perhaps more ethically challenging than a choice between war and peace.  The following is a thoughtful, passionate response by David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, to President Obama’s recent speech in Norway. “In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, President Obama, one of the world’s great orators and purveyors of hope, gave a speech...

As an author, social scientist and lawyer, Riane Eisler has been a pioneer in showing how women’s rights (and therefore human rights) are the building blocks of world peace. Eisler’s international bestseller, The Chalice and the Blade, outlines the need for a cultural transformation, moving from the politics of dominance to the practice of partnership.  The Chalice and the Blade...

“There are two kinds of celebrity crash,” Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik writes (Dec.14). “The first, like Tiger Woods’ on Nov. 27, is accidental… The second is intentional.  You crash a President’s State dinner…” Due respect, Jim, you missed a third: when the mainstream media drives us to distraction with non-stop coverage of notorious, celebrity events. In describing the White House State Dinner crashers,...

There’s a scene early in the film Bull Durham where the Kevin Costner character is being sized up by the Susan Sarandon character. She’s making a choice between two minor league ball players as to whom she’ll guide and girlfriend throughout the season. Up to this point, Sarandon – by virtue of her charismatic charm, not to mention an incredible body –...

“It is in everybody’s interest to seek those [actions] that lead to happiness and avoid those which lead to suffering. And because our interests are inextricably linked, we are compelled to accept ethics as the indispensable interface between my desire to be happy and yours.” – His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama What is clear from the writings of the...