Last year, Starbucks – a company well-known for its inclusive, positive message along with excellent service – became the center of a controversy that should never have taken place. As MSNBC reported (Nov. 13, 2015), “The iconic Christmas cup has featured several winter-themed designs since it first appeared in 1997. From minimalist snowflakes and hand-drawn reindeer to a winking snowman...

No, this is NOT a joke – Rick Tyler, an independent candidate running for Congress from Tennessee, received a much deserved flood of criticism after putting up a campaign billboard along Highway 411 in Polk County which reads, “Make America White Again.” According to WTVC-TV, Tyler explained his reasons this way: “ ‘The Make America White Again billboard advertisement will...

In another move that can only be described by many as bizarre, North Carolina’s governor decided to sue the federal government over a recent state law limiting bathroom access for transgender people. North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory stated that he would sue the Department of Justice in response to a letter he received from Attorney General Loretta Lynch that...

In a moving and meaningful message to Congress last Thursday, Pope Francis said, “Politics is… an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good… Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be...

“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”  – St. Augustine Before his elevation to the head of the Catholic Church, Jorge Bergoglio began as a Jesuit priest from Argentina. Since his investiture as Pope in 2013, following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis — in honor of Francis of...

Even as he took the oath of office, Lincoln knew that civil war was coming. In his first speech as commander and chief, even as he urged restraint, he made clear “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war… You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while...

Nothing is uglier than someone who feels she’s special and others aren’t. Following a one week suspension for verbally abusing a towing company employee, ESPN Sports reporter Brittany “Britt” McHenry has returned to work. In a video that’s been widely circulated, the 28-year-old can be heard heartlessly disparaging a female clerk, clearly pointing out the “class” distinction between the two,...

With the recent shootings of two police officers in New York, the Eric Garner and Michael Brown protests , the Sony “hack,” the continued terrorist threats by the self-styled “Guardians of Peace,” and ISIS, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology, neurology and neurosurgery at Stanford University, finds meaning in a Christmas gesture made 100 years ago. The front page...

Last January, Megan, one of my New Hampshire students, responded to the question, “who is the most ethical person you know?” with this essay about a neighborhood mom named Pat. When most people think of an ethical person they think of Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi or Jimmy Carter. They all did great things in their lifetime, which is why people...

The recent controversy over scenes of torture in Zero Dark Thirty, a film dramatizing the hunt for terrorist Osama bin Laden, caused me to revisit a student paper from Steve Ambra’sContemporary Ethical Issues class. The student, a former U.S. soldier deployed to Iraq, reminded me of just some of the many ethical issues faced by our military in combat situations. “I joined the military at...