Author Archive

Enron Made Suckers of the Media

May 28, 2010 Note to readers: The following story first appeared in UtiliPoint’s IssueAlert on 8-8-03. In recent weeks, I’ve watched a documentary on CNBC regarding Enron’s plight, and this has been coupled with the scrutiny now given to the investment banking world. In thinking about these issues over and over, I have thought about […]

Guns, Energy and Free Speech

November 2013 With the holiday season upon us, it is time for joy and warmth. But it is also time to recollect — time to consider the tragedy of what occurred nearly a year ago when a deranged man gunned down small children and their teachers in Connecticut. Like everyone else in this country and […]

Political Graft Shrouds Climate Debate

Academics are not lobbyists. Or are they? The Heartland Papers are teaching us that the field of science is awash in cash — money that is being supplied by vested interests that are trying influence public policy, and even the school curriculum. People of goodwill often disagree passionately about scientific hypotheses and subsequent conclusions. It’s […]

Penn State, Enron and the Golden Rule

Penn State’s story is a national lesson. While the facts surrounding that tragedy are different from what the energy sector had endured, the analogy remains pertinent. A decade ago, the “prototype” for Business 2.0 collapsed. Enron, of course, had been toasted throughout the corporate community. But its exclusive focus on profits led otherwise reasonable people […]

Journalistic Principles

Another lifetime ago, I was a senior in high school. I took what would become a transformative class: Great Books, which started me on a course of becoming an avid pursuer of knowledge. Plato’s Republic was first up. And the one passage coming from that book that has stood with me all these years was […]

Making Sense of These Elections

The mid-term elections are not just about which direction the country may be headed. They are also about whether voters are able to set aside their visceral emotions and evaluate the issues and the candidates in a fair way. Let’s take the race for the U.S. Senate in Delaware where the Democratic candidate Chris Coons […]

Obama’s Reasoning

Seems a lot of folks are getting riled up over a column I just penned comparing and contrasting “Obamanomics” and “Reaganomics.” The gist of the negative sentiments is that Obama’s plan will produce a federal budget deficit that may never be repaid and government’s excessive involvement will be unduly harmful. I understand. Recognize that I […]