Should a newspaper print a story from a confidential report concerning ethics investigations, in which members of Congress are named, if the story was obtained as a result of an accidental release? Late Thursday night (Oct. 29) The Washington Post released the following two stories as “Breaking News”:  Confidential House report reveals details of investigations into lawmakers, aides; Seven members of House defense subcommittee...

Sometimes we get so caught up in the bad news du jour that we forget to appreciate some of the good news. Now, for example, Republicans continue to speak out against the “new” health care bill from Democrats.  Democrats turn around and blame Republicans for the economic crisis and lack of regulation on Wall Street.  (The bad news.) However, Neel Kashkari “…hears...

On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley Sullenberger had to make a series of critical decisions in 208 seconds.  As a result of his actions, he saved the lives of all 155 individuals on a crippled US Airways flight that had to ditch in New York’s Hudson River. In an interview (washingtonpost.com) conducted by Doug Feaver, Sullenberger talks about the qualities...

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...

A Rap star takes the stage from one award winner shouting that another should have won. A TV pundit calls the President a racist. During a Presidential address to Congress, a representative shouts, “You lie!” Lumbering through a moral wilderness of incivility and unreason we are losing the best of ourselves to fear and uncertainty. With a struggling economy, rising...

Last Friday, I offered an ethical dilemma. I asked readers to imagine sitting on the California parole board to decide whether to grant convicted murderer Susan Atkins “compassionate release” based on her terminally ill condition. I asked readers to offer their thoughts before submitting my own conclusions.  One comment that repeatedly came up in conversations with friends, “How can you show...

You sit on the California state parole board looking into a request to release Susan Atkins, the terminally ill prisoner convicted of participating in the killing of actress Sharon Tate and four others in 1969. At the parole hearing, you listen to family members of the victims. Debra Tate, sister of the actress: “I will pray for her soul when...

Much has been made recently of the health care debate.  And it’s important.  But there’s another issue that is just as critical. Around the time news icon Walter Cronkite died, a harmonic convergence of sorts took place in my office.  I had been revisiting a report by founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation David Krieger entitled, A Return to Sanity...

I was in the midst of writing a piece on President Obama’s initial remarks made last Wednesday concerning the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley when news came Friday of Mr. Obama making a new statement to “recalibrate” his language. More accurately, he was recalibrating his judgment. When I first heard the news that Mr....

“Jump the shark” – The moment when a TV show, actor or public figure has gone downhill.  Refers to an episode from Happy Days where Fonzi jumped a shark on water skis; labeled the lowest point of the series. – Urban Dictionary Genius can be staggering.  Sadly, in the case of Michael Jackson, it can also be tragically fragile. Jackson...