COMMENTARY: Making Lives

A few years ago I came across a video by a very dynamic speaker, a former middle school teacher named Taylor Mali. He is now what’s called a performance poet — someone who delivers poetry as singers deliver songs. The poem that caught my attention was “What Do I Make?” an articulate and aggressive response to a critic who was putting down teachers. …

COMMENTARY: Good Ethics Really Is Good Business 749.4

  A challenge I frequently face while consulting with senior executives and boards of directors of public companies is a belief that their primary mandate is to make profits and enhance shareholder value. Thus, ethical principles like honesty, fairness, and caring are proper guides to decision making only to the extent that they can demonstrably improve profitability or incorporated into …

COMMENTARY: Sorry, Joe, You Have to Go 748.5

At the risk of losing my credibility, I have to retract my previous commentary, “Say It Ain’t So, Joe,” in which I urged readers to be generous in assessing the moral culpability of Penn State Coach Joe Paterno in relation to an undeniably horrendous situation involving the sexual abuse of children by former coach Jerry Sandusky. This change of position …

COMMENTARY: “Say it Ain’t So, Joe” 748.4

“Say it ain’t so, Joe” These words, directed at Shoeless Joe Jackson as he emerged from a courthouse where he and seven other White Sox players were accused of taking bribes to manipulate games, expressed the profound sense of betrayal and disappointment suffered when an idol falls from grace.  Though Jackson, one of the finest players of his era, claimed …

COMMENTARY: Favorite Quips 748.3

As a break from heavy thoughts about heavy matters,  I’d like to share with you a list of some of my favorite quips collected over the years. I don’t know the original sources of these one-liners, but they definitely weren’t from me. 1)       If women can have PMS, then men can have ESPN. 2)       If quitters never win and

COMMENTARY: Just Keep on Knocking 748.2

In the summer of my junior year in college I took a job as a door-to-door salesman for the Fuller Brush Company. My mother had just lost a long battle with cancer, and I wanted to earn enough money to have a photo of her turned into a painted portrait to give to my dad. What I earned depended entirely …

COMMENTARY: The Cowboy Code 748.1

I grew up in much simpler times. Television was in its infancy and the idea of a hero was exemplified by a white-hatted cowboy.  There was a clarity and simplicity to the moral code of these heroes that left no doubt that there is a right and wrong. As I became more sophisticated, it was easy to ridicule these simplistic …