After a week of protests following the grand jury decision that Officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, another image and story took off on social media proving that compassion can win out against tragedy, and it took place at a rally 2,000 miles away. “In the hours after The Oregonian posted...

One of the aspects that comes from walking into a class of total strangers for the first time is expectations. I expect that because most of them are young, that they have relatively normal lives absent any grave or impactful issues. I could not be more wrong. The level of candor reflected in most papers was not only unexpected but demonstrated a...

Ten miles outside of Concord, New Hampshire is a little slice of heaven called Gould Hill Farm. Located in the town of Hopkinton, Gould Hill is 60 glorious acres of apples, peaches, blueberries and pumpkins that have been farmed since the mid 1700s. With a 75-mile view of God’s country, the apples are simply the best I’ve ever had. Returning to Concord...

First of all, Colman McCarthy is funny. Every time he gets on the phone with me, he always asks, “Hey Jim, how are those orange trees doing in your backyard?” Colman is a philosopher: “Warmaking doesn’t stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.” Colman is a passionate pacifist who believes in fighting fire with… water. “Since...

Every year the Gallup organization asks a cross-section of Americans to rate “the perceived honesty and ethical standards” of various professions. As expected, nurses, pharmacists and medical doctors have topped the list at 85%, 75% and 70% respectively in 2012. “Six medical professional categories were included in this year’s update,” Gallup writes. “Nurses’ high rating this is not unexpected; they...

At five years of age, Kikuko Otake, along with her two brothers and young mother, survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan living just a little more than one mile from the hypocenter. In the first half of her book, Masako’s Story, she shares her mother’s account. “The rain soaked us to the skin. You began to shake, And grew pale....

I have never read a first person account so painful and powerful, yet so important to our future about an issue that hangs over all of us to this day. From the first words of prose-poetry (the book’s entire narrative is written in free-verse), I could not stop reading. It was shortly before 8:15 a.m., Monday, August 6, 1945 in...

The “better angels of our nature” are not always present during times of disaster. Among the hero stories throughout Hurricane Sandy, one account stands in stark contrast. During the height of the storm, with water rushing into her home on New York’s Staten Island, Glenda Moore gathered her two sons, 4-year-old Connor and 2-year-old Brendan, strapped them into the backseat...

At one time or another, all of us have benefited from the inspiration of someone – a teacher, mentor – someone. John McCarthy, a friend and teacher based in Washington, D.C., inspires excellence in his students. “The Manny Burriss Story,” from May 2008, is but one example. USA TODAY – May 10, 2008 – Manny Burriss went 3-for-4 with a...

After the 1998 scandal that rocked his presidency, President Bill Clinton was not one of my favorite people. When Clinton cheated with intern Monica Lewinsky he cheated the rest of the country at a time when things were dramatically improving. When he left office, Clinton left the country with the first federal budget surplus in nearly 30 years. However, with much of...