Where do you go when the court of last resort turns you down? For the past several years I’ve been researching a couple of aspects of the Office of Independent Counsel headed by Kenneth Starr and succeeded by Robert Ray. I interviewed Jo Ann Harris, the former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division under then-Attorney General...

A favorite childhood memory of mine is sitting around the dining table – mom, pop, brother and me – rolling the dice and hoping to make my fortune by buying and building on several properties. Ah, yes, we all enjoyed a good time with The Landlord’s Game. The what? In a new book, out last month, entitled The Monopolists: Obsession,...

Around Oscar time, it has become routine for critics to partner with historians and scrutinize historically-based movies for their accuracy or inaccuracy regarding the facts. A documentary documents a non-fiction event(s) or person(s) usually mixing interviews, archive film, possibly recreations of an event or events, usually with a narrator who details what happened. A fact-based movie is a dramatization of...

The Age of Reason, (aka, the Enlightenment), must have been a remarkable time to live in – to challenge the conventional wisdom that relied on the traditional forms of authority, and instead, stress analysis, individualism and reason. Can you imagine having discussions on the issues of the day with the likes of Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant...

While everybody is posting their own end-of-the-year list, here’s my selection of ethical stand-outs. Mike Carey – Carey is the first African-American to referee the Super Bowl and has been honored as one of the best in the game in 2008. While honesty and fairness are critical to his job, so is respect. So, in 2006 Carey quietly requested that...

During the past several weeks, protest marches have spread from Ferguson to Washington D.C. Is it all about the police-involved deaths of two unarmed black men, or have these events uncovered a long simmering flaw in the criminal justice system – a system that appears to side with police and against the citizens they’re supposed to protect and serve? John...

I never became aware of the racial tension that had existed for decades until the evening of August 11, 1965. The Watts Riots continued for six, agonizing days and resulted in 34 deaths and $40 million in property damage. The last two weeks have seen protests spread from Ferguson, Missouri to New York, Seattle, Washington, and Los Angeles. Last Thursday...

Beginning with last week’s grand jury decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, and continuing to Wednesday night, protesters calling for fundamental change in the way police operate have gained significant momentum in major cities across the country. #CrimingWhileWhite became the unifying Twitter hashtag widely circulated since Wednesday’s decision by a New York...

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.” – Atticus Finch, “To Kill a Mockingbird” There’s a moment in the film, To Kill a Mockingbird that’s particularly compelling. Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in a small...

After learning of the death of Jo Ann Harris yesterday, I felt a great sense of loss at someone who was the definition of integrity. A former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division under then-Attorney General Janet Reno, Harris was not only the first woman to head that post, she was also an uncompromising fighter to...