“A-well-a everybody’s heard about the bird! Bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word A-well-a bird, bird, bird, bird is the word . . . ”—The Trashmen, 1963   What do you do if you’re the richest billionaire on the planet who has built the premier electric car company on the planet, and has invested billions in SpaceX to eventually go to...

Integrity: firm adherence to a code of moral values—uprightness. A rap star spouts antisemitic and anti-Black remarks and refuses to apologize. A basketball star apologizes for antisemitic remarks only after he was suspended for his actions. A Supreme Court Justice will not step aside from legal decision-making on any issue brought before the court regarding the 2020 election involving the...

Returning to duty Monday, November 7! Alex Jones, the belligerent, hostile, influential media host of Infowars was held accountable for his lies concerning the murder of 20 first graders and six educators at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on November 2012. After a 4-week trial, the jury awarded damages to the eight families totaling almost $1 billion. Jones...

How much toxicity can American democracy take before it collapses? Here’s pro-life conservative pundit Dana Loesch speaking about the scandal surrounding former pro-football player, anti-abortion advocate, and Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker after Walker denied allegedly paying for an abortion for his girlfriend. “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the...

With all the chaos and destruction brought about by Washington and an unprecedented hurricane, one story has received only moderate attention. Before Yvon Chouinard became the founder and owner of Patagonia, I knew him as a legendary rock climber in Yosemite Valley. At the time, climbing these extraordinary sheer faces of granite was a different and difficult sport that not...

My wife is the president of a local non-profit organization. As such I attend many of the functions she takes part in. Frequently, I am privy to conversations by board members and others regarding a variety of matters, and sometimes I give my wife unsolicited advice. Several years ago, a potential donor was being courted by the organization. However, this...

Attending a Padres/Dodgers game in San Diego, I’m sitting next to a die-hard Padres fan. Despite my lifelong Dodger fever, we shared laughs, baseball stories and favorite teams: he loved the Yankees; I loved the Red Sox. What makes baseball so compelling is that while both sides want to win, they play on the same field, follow the same rules,...

“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. — Rene Descartes, 16th century French Mathematician While I talked about this earlier this month, we need reminders . . . a lot of reminders. Last week was Banned Books Week. It’s hard to imagine an America—a country that places free speech at...

Is there any Rubicon, despicable, illegal or otherwise, that Trump could cross that would change the hearts and minds of loyalists? Fox pundit Sean Hannity asked former president Donald Trump about Top Secret, classified documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago. This was Trump’s response: “If you’re the president of the United States you can declassify just by saying it’s...

The cancer of false conspiracies, lies, and cynicism eating away at the Republic—lies propagated and fed by the former president and his allies—has metastasized to many Republicans running for office in state elections. The New York Times writes, “When asked, six Trump-backed Republican nominees for governor and the Senate in midterm battlegrounds would not commit to accepting this year’s election...