Well you probably realized that sooner or later I had to revisit sex, but it usually comes attached to some scandal. Not this time. There has been a lot of talk lately about what’s been called a “carbon footprint.”  It measures the impact that humans have on the environment – how much waste, greenhouse gases, resources used, and the subsequent...

Does a corporation have a responsibility to be ethical beyond its employees and shareholders? Whenever this question has been asked in surveys, an overwhelming majority of people answer, “Yes!” Here’s what one corporate chairman said about ethics in a memo: “Employees of the Company are charged with conducting their business affairs in accordance with the highest ethical standards. An employee shall...

The fallout surrounding Countrywide Financial and Chief Executive Angelo R. Mozilo just keeps getting worse.  The last 42-days have seen an extraordinary amount of activity. On May 15, Federal District Court Judge Mariana Pfaelzer said that “…she found confidential witness accounts in the shareholder complaint to be credible… they suggested, ‘a widespread company culture that encouraged employees to push mortgages...

Psychiatrist and radio personality Frasier Crane is wrestling with an ethical dilemma. Dr. Honey Snow is not only a pop-psychologist, best selling author and knockout blonde, she also has a crush on Seattle’s resident narcissist and relationship expert. (That’s not the dilemma.) When the stunning Snow asks him to write the forward to her new book, Frasier struggles to craft...

“The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average...

Washington Post, May 29 – “Air Force Colonel Morris Davis said he was denied a medal for his two years of work building military commissions cases against terrorism suspects because he resigned and later spoke out about problems in the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions.” (see “Courage Under Fire,” May 2). Sadly, this is the fate of many who choose honesty...

In one keystroke Countrywide Financial’s Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo lived up to the worst traits of a corporate executive. It started when homeowner Daniel Bailey wrote a letter addressed to Mr. Mozilo and sixteen other Countrywide staff: “I am writing this letter to explain my unfortunate set of circumstances that have caused me to become delinquent on my mortgage,” Bailey...

“Why is it so hard for a man to see clearly beyond the letter of the law?” This deft piece of rationalization comes courtesy of Mr. Voysey, Sr. to his son, Edward, Jr. from a play by English dramatist Harley Granville Barker, edited by David Mamet. “The Voysey Inheritance” is a 103-year-old morality play that gives proof to the notion...

In the early 1940’s, Norman Corwin was nearly as well known as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and much admired. Author Ray Bradbury calls Corwin, “…the greatest director, the greatest writer and the greatest producer in the history of radio.  His brilliant dramas, fantasies, and documentaries reached into American homes – and across an ocean – as far as the radio could...

There’s a moment near the end of the 1999 movie The Insider where Jeff Wigand is watching his whistle-blowing interview on 60 Minutes with his two daughters.  During the interview, one of his daughters looks over at him and slowly smiles. Between 1995 and 1996, Dr. Jeffrey Wigand lost his job, his house, his wife and for a time, his...