Everyday Ethics

Well, friends, I hope you’ll bear with me for some good ol’ Monday angsting. As we all know, it’s tempting to navel-gaze, but I think that my questions for you just manage to miss the self-indulgent mark (I hope?)… Some would say you’re only as good as the company you keep. If that’s truly the case,…

Last weekend I returned from a lovely, restful weekend trip to San Francisco. As I boarded the red-eye back to New York, I found myself hoping that just this once, I would have the ideal flying neighbor–the non-existent one. What I got instead was a middle-aged man, sniffling, sneezing, coughing his way through the 5-hour…

Is pessimism a moral issue? I am honestly not sure. I think it is a character issue, however, and for today, for me, that’s close enough. Why do I want to talk about it? Because “Failure Friday” is where we discuss our character defects – a sort of secular confessional we hope is good for…

Yelling “You lie!” at your president during an address to the joint session of congress. Just… wow. Does disrespect come any more egregious, more shameful, more heinous? If it does, I can’t imagine it. Is it because our president is young? Liberal? Black? None of the above? All of the above? I honestly can’t imagine…

Dental plans are the worst, aren’t they? Some of you may remember my worst-date story in which I also described an accident that resulted in a mouthful of broken teeth – after paying more than half those costs out-of-pocket, I feel traumatized simply walking past a dentist’s office. So I must admit there’s a part…

Whether you’re for it or against it, odds are, you feel passionately about health care reform. But how many of us have even made the attempt to dive into the 1,000-odd page health care reform bill H.R. 3200 “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009”? I can tell you I made it as far as…

Personal responsibility is one of the few areas of ethics I’ve followed with some dedication – well, I think I’ve followed. I don’t live my life as ethically or morally or honestly as I’d like to at times. But once a mistake has been made, I take pride in concentrating on my own  responsibility for…

When I posted “Grist For The Mill” a few days ago, I expected it to be controversial. You can’t talk about the sad practice of grinding up male baby chicks in egg hatcheries and say you still plan to eat eggs afterward without stirring up some outrage. I expected – and got – a few…

Where does one go when they need a little Etiquette 101? Why Emily Post, of course! We’re pleased to introduce Daniel Post Senning, moderator of the Emily Post Q+A blog – Etiquette Daily.com, as a new guest blogger. Our belief here at Everyday Ethics is that wrestling with what might seem to be a “little”…

“A whole website just to laugh at discount shoppers?” you scoff?  Why, yes. Apparently, so. I decided I had to run a mention of the site, PeopleOfWalmart.com, after a commenter on our own blog said: “Has anyone ever noticed this sort of thing always happens at Wal-Mart?” in referring to the story of a man…

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