Recent Responsibility Commentaries

Featured image for “It Has to Get Bad Before There’s Change?”
It Has to Get Bad Before There’s Change?
“I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998.” That’s film director Peter Jackson talking about the blacklist producer Harvey Weinstein created for actresses Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd who refused his sexual overtures. “I realize,” Jackson said, “that this was very likely the...
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December 18, 2017
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No Longer Silent
The list grows longer every week. This week’s announcement has celebrity chef Mario Batali stepping down from his businesses after four women came forward with sexual misconduct allegations. Last week saw the resignations of U.S. representative, John Conyers and freshman Senator Al Franken after allegations from multiple women. Fittingly, TIME magazine has chosen 61 individuals – 57 women and 4...
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December 13, 2017
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“Paris Has Been Liberated!”
Two months after the D-Day invasion by Allied forces, with the wind at their backs against German forces, CBS radio correspondent Charles Collingwood wrote an extraordinary story for radio broadcast: “The French Second Armored Division entered Paris today after the Parisians had risen as one man to beat down the German troops who had garrisoned the city. It was the...
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December 11, 2017
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The Work-Around
work-around: a plan or method to circumvent a problem. After watching Senator Al Franken’s resignation speech yesterday, my cynical self reminded me that too many men in powerful positions appear genetically incapable of taking full, unconditional responsibility for their actions. As this is likely the last speech he’ll make on the Senate floor, Franken sounds both serious and deliberate. He...
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December 8, 2017
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Hope is the Only Choice
It takes a lot to get Nuclear Peace Activist David Krieger worked up. That’s why I was surprised by his recent essay, Decoding Donald, where Krieger – founder and president of The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – writes forcefully about the unequivocal threat posed by Donald Trump. “You really pulled no punches in your critique and ultimate solution for dealing...
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December 6, 2017
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Memo to: Alabama Voters
One week from tomorrow, December 12, Alabama voters go to the polls to vote for a replacement for Senator Jeff Sessions who was appointed U.S. attorney general. According to a CBS News poll, Republican Roy Moore is leading Democrat Doug Jones by 6 percentage points — 49 percent to Jones’s 43 among likely voters.  In the same poll, 71 percent...
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December 4, 2017
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Truth, Trust and Trump
“If Jesus Christ [got] down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him,  ‘Hold on a second. I need to check with the President if it’s true.’ ” – Trump voter, CNN New Day, November 20 This is how low truth and trust have plummeted in the eyes of some voters. Writing about the...
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December 1, 2017
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How Do You Spell Excess?
In an age of gilded toilets and mink-covered walls, even I was surprised by this story. On the front page of the Business section of The New York Times (Nov. 4), journalist James B. Stewart writes about a story originally reported by The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 18), about how former G.E. CEO Jeff Immelt traveled around the world in...
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November 29, 2017
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The Ethical Take: Some of the President’s Men
The E.T. is looking at the few, the ignorant, and the humbly-challenged of Trump’s “best people” from his administration. Mick Mulvaney – currently head of the Office of Management and Budget, will temporarily do double-duty as interim director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since the departure of Richard Cordray who served as the bureau’s first director. Remember the banking excesses...
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November 24, 2017
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“Reeling”
That’s how CBS This Morning host Gayle King described her reaction to the news that co-host, and PBS correspondent Charlie Rose is the latest to be called out and admit to sexual misconduct charges leveled at him. Sitting alone at their morning table, and looking into the camera with sober faces, Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King discussed their reactions to...
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November 22, 2017