The use of social media has grown exponentially in the last several years. It’s become an ideal, and in some cases, vital source for reporting everything from emergencies to political uprisings; from coordinating protest marches to connecting with friends and family. That’s social media’s positive side. There is, however, a much darker side where bullies, predators and terrorists live. It’s...

Ethics is not about what we say or what we intend, it’s about what we do. This is the heart of integrity – demonstrating a consistency between ethical principle and practice. While I wrote this commentary more than eight years ago, it’s a story worth repeating and a moral reminder to me. Who we are is never more clearly revealed than...

Four Red Sox fans were removed from Fenway Park in Boston last night after they unfurled a large banner over the Green Monster which read, “Racism is as American as Baseball.” In an anonymous e-mail statement, one of the protestors wrote: “We are a group of white anti-racist protesters. We want to remind everyone that just as baseball is fundamental...

During the month of August, comfortably ensconced in my “cone of silence,” I spent most of the time reading a variety of books. While all of them speak to various ethical values, many of the authors were simply good storytellers. After listening to an interview of former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill, I became interested in reading his account of how...

True story, every morning, I make the bed. (I also wash my own laundry but that’s another story.) Over the years, my wife has occasionally mentioned this to others at social functions, as if performing such tasks was due to some anomalous male genetic mutation. (The shocking truth is, most men routinely have made their beds and other chores before...

“…if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom…” – Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter Maddi Runkles, an 18-year-old high school student with a 4.0 grade average, was not allowed to attend the graduation ceremony with her class in Hagerstown, Maryland, because she is pregnant. Technically, according to a statement to parents...

Graham Spanier, the former president of Penn State University, was found guilty last March of endangering the welfare of a child in the Jerry Sandusky sex assault case. In March, I wrote about my time at Penn State where I spoke on ethics to a variety of students, administrators, alumni and… as it turned out, then-President Spanier. Spanier and I...

This is what happens when poor information and irrational fear trumps verified medical science. “The young mother,” The Washington Post reports (May 5), “started getting advice early on from friends in the close-knit Somali immigrant community here. Don’t let your children get the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella — it causes autism, they said. “Suaado Salah listened. And this...

Conservative author and pundit Ann Coulter says she will make an appearance at the University of California at Berkeley on April 27 despite university officials cancelling a previously scheduled on-campus event. [See updates below.] I’m not a fan of Coulter. I wrote about the conservative’s narcissistic “antics” in my last book, Shameless: The Ethical Case Against Three Out-of-Control Critics, and...

Here Rests, In Honored Glory, An American Soldier, Known But To God – inscription on the tomb of the unknown soldiers, Arlington National Cemetery Palm Desert, California eighth-grader John Diaz, along with fifty other students, will be visiting Washington D.C. in June for their first time. Two students will be given the rare opportunity to place a wreath at the...