Memo to: President Obama and Governor Romney With both of you remain busy ramping up your campaigns, I offer some ethical wisdom from now until November, and… hopefully, beyond. 1. Loyalty is important, but… It’s nice to have loyal friends and followers who have the same passion to want to make this country work for the betterment of all, but not...

In less than two weeks in April, we learned of two high-profile scandals involving two government agencies. Both carry potential for serious repercussions based largely on how their respective leaders handled the crisis. The General Services Administration’s job is to support and manage the basic infrastructure of federal agencies by providing supplies, communications, offices, and transportation through “government-wide, cost-minimizing policies.” Apparently,...

Fast-talking, mob-saving New York Lawyer Murray Richman famously said, “When the word is in your mouth, you are the master. When the word is out of your mouth, you are the slave.” Anyone who reads my commentaries with any regularity knows that I am a stickler for the facts. The facts played an important part in my research for my last...

Last Friday’s question regarding the 26-state challenge to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act and the three-days of oral arguments in the Supreme Court drew a lot of response. Before I go any further, let me say that, “no” I have not read all 2,700 pages of the law. I have read through the key features of the law as well as a timeline of...

The Greeks called it arête. Traditionally translated as “virtue,” its central meaning is excellence. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, arête is applied to courage and strength, especially when exhibited in competition and this is one common dimension. But it’s more. An aspect of the value of responsibility, the pursuit of excellence, carries an ethical component when others count on our effectiveness at...

In my book, What Do You Stand For?, former U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Assistant Secretary of Defense Dick Capen puts forth his own code which he calls his “Higher Ground Check List.” I asked my New Hampshire students to compose their own higher ground check list. Here’s a composite: – First, forgive yourself; you can’t start with too much baggage. –...

The level of thought demonstrated in many of the papers written for the New Hampshire Technical Institute’s Contemporary Ethical Issues class co-taught by myself and Stephen Ambra was quite refreshing to see. One assignment was to compare and contrast 1950’s news media (i.e. Good Night and Good Luck) with that of today’s social media as observed in the feature film The Social Network....

Following a screening and discussion of the film Good Night and Good Luck, which documents news journalist Edward R. Murrow’s fight with Senate demagogue Joseph McCarthy, some students in Stephen Ambra’s Contemporary Ethical Issues class – a class I was invited to participate in – were asked to read a copy of Murrow’s famous “wires and lights” speech and examine if his words remain...

Why is it okay for network television to broadcast expletives in the Steven Spielberg movie, Saving Private Ryan, but wrong to broadcast expletives from Cher at an awards show broadcast? Why is it okay for the FCC to object to nudity in an episode of NYPD Blue, but not in airing nudity from another Spielberg classic, Schindler’s List? These are just some...

Tenzin Gyatso is the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. He is both head of state (in exile) and the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He is admired and esteemed worldwide as a man who has championed policies of nonviolence. His consistent compassionate nonviolence, even in the face of great aggression, led to his receiving the Nobel Prize for Peacein 1989....