In the cut-throat world of fine Parisian dining, the food critic is King.  In the Pixar movie Ratatouille, Anton Ego (superbly voiced by Peter O’Toole), is Emperor!  “The Grim Eater” as he is known, strikes fear into the hearts of anyone even thinking about offering a new dish without his “divine” approval. In my little niche of essays on ethics, I strive...

When I woke my wife Friday morning to tell her the news that President Obama had won the Nobel Prize for Peace, her first reaction mirrored that of many: “For what?” In an early morning speech Friday, Mr. Obama made clear, “I do not view [receiving this Prize] as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather an affirmation of American...

It’s difficult to express in words the true significance of the event that took place in our nation’s capitol yesterday. All I can do is offer my own impressions. “Our challenges may be new… But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things...

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Listening, last night, to Senator John McCain and President-Elect Barack Obama, the first words from Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities flashed before me. “…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the...