On this eve before Christmas, a heartwarming interview with the one man we all look forward to seeing, or at least hearing something positive from. I’m speaking, of course, of Santa Claus. So here, from December 25, 2009 is my supper with Santa. Of all the high-profile people I’ve had the opportunity to interview, Santa Claus was just about the...

One of my favorite Christmas stories first appeared December 24, 2008. Enjoy! Much of the time we tend to think of compassion in terms of the extraordinary moments, events which seem removed from our daily perspective. The Dalai Lama’s story of a Tibetan monk’s compassion towards his Chinese jailers is one example. However, not long ago, I experienced a simple,...

By now, most of us are familiar with the story of a New York City cop’s recent act of compassion. After finding a barefoot, homeless man in need of warm socks and shoes on an extremely cold night in Times Square, Police Officer Larry DePrimo walked across the street and bought the best pair of boots he could find with...

In 1999 it was Columbine; Fort Hood, 2009. The 2011 shootings in Tucson claimed six lives and U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords almost became the seventh victim of that massacre. Now, Aurora. It’s impossible to make sense of the senseless. In his 2009 book, How to Practice – The Way to a Meaningful Life, His Holiness writes, “If your life is easy...

During a session of Contemporary Ethical Issues, a class taught by me and Professor Stephen Ambra at the New Hampshire Technical Institute, the subject of bullying came up, which prompted me to ask, “Show of hands, how many of you have ever been bullied?” Out of 36 students, I was surprised to discover an overwhelming majority had faced ridicule, coercion, harassment,...

In Silver Spring, Maryland, Police stopped a black Lamborghini without “tags” (no visible license plates). The man who stepped outside the vehicle turned out to be The Dark Knight himself… Batman! The Batman? Well, no. His real name (at least on his license and registration) is Leonard B. Robinson, a 48-year-old self-made success who made a pile of money after selling his commercial...

You never know where inspiration will come from. One of the great pleasures in teaching a class of motivated New Hampshire students about ethics are the many personal stories they share. The pre-class assignment was to answer the question derived from the book’s title: What do you stand for – what principles do you live by? Describe a moment of...

Tenzin Gyatso is the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. He is both head of state (in exile) and the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He is admired and esteemed worldwide as a man who has championed policies of nonviolence. His consistent compassionate nonviolence, even in the face of great aggression, led to his receiving the Nobel Prize for Peacein 1989....

Amanda Yost is a frequent visitor to this site as well as a student at Santa Monica College currently studying cultural anthropology, with an eye toward cultural ethnography. (Yeah, I had to look that one up, too.) “I’m hoping,” Amanda says, “to focus on the ethnographic side of anthropology as another way to give a voice to the voiceless. Ethnography takes into...

I met Karen Armstrong two years ago at a local talk she gave on the release of her book The Case for God – a thoughtful and highly readable history of the importance of belief. In a brief but private conversation, I found her engaged, informed and always searching; searching to learn more from whomever she spoke with or interviewed. Armstrong’s latest...