Abstinence and charisma. A recent Time magazine cover extolled Angelina Jolie’s “movie star charisma.” Barak Obama has been christened “The Democrats’ Charisma Doctor.” As his star rises, Hillary Clinton has seen her once formidable lead in several primary states shrink. At the beginning of 2007, several Democratic strategists urged Clinton to unleash a “charisma offensive”…

Wealth and legacy. Over the next 50 years, the United States will experience a massive intergenerational transfer of wealth, with the assets passing from one generation to another estimated at more than $40 trillion. For those on the giving or receiving end, it’s wise to remember Robert K. Merton’s influential 1936 article “The Unanticipated Consequences…

“We humbly suggest you consider doing… both.” With a rapier wit that could devastate opponents in parliamentary debate, William Wilberforce was first elected to Parliament in 1780 at the age of twenty-one, along with his college friend William Pitt. Wilberforce understood what Germany chancellor Otto Von Bismarck keenly observed one-hundred years later – that laws…

“Where’s Jesus?” It’s not uncommon for well-meaning Christians to assume they must mention Jesus’ name and include a steady stream of Scripture in as many conversations as possible – or they have failed the Lord. When Christ’s name is not front and center, they ask: “Where’s Jesus?” One friend put it this way: “Christians talk…

Combustible fuel. Attorneys are expected to finish closing arguments today in a hate crimes case that is roiling the coastal California town of Long Beach. On Halloween night of 2006, an ugly fight involving a group of black teenagers and three white women left all three women badly beaten (one had 12 facial fractures). Long…

Paradise Spell. Half of our 2007 New Years’ resolutions have already crashed and burned. Health club memberships are up, attendance has begun to slack. Americans are like Jay Gatsby who “believed in the green light… that year by year recedes before us.” We’re “motivated by the Paradise Spell,” as David Brooks puts it, “by the…

Implicit answer. The best companies, according to consultant Nikos Mourkogiannis, invest in something greater than strictly bottom-line concerns. Red® is an example. It’s not a charity but a company that sells red iPods, phones, credit cards, and clothing apparel. Their purpose is to invest some of its profits to buy and distribute antiretroviral drugs for…

Wipe out. 37-year-old Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs recently flew back from Toronto to be with his girlfriend Kim Porter while she gave birth to his twin girls – D’Lila Star and Jessie James. Diddy already has two sons – Christian, 8, with Porter, and Justin, 12, who live with his ex-girlfriend, Misa Hylton-Brim. This isn’t Lifestyles…

The world is flat. Using fiber-optic cables, advanced compression technologies, and aeronautical work force software, Boeing has set up a twenty-four hour ‘round-the-world workday (two shifts in Russia and one in America). In Russia 1,000 engineers, formerly with different Russian aircraft companies like Ilyusian, Tupelov and Sukhoi, pass engineering plans back and forth with American…

Boring. “Have you read a good Buddhist novel lately?” That question was put to a friend of mine years ago by a Princeton University PhD candidate. Her thesis focused on early Japanese literature (including Buddhist stories) and frankly it was pretty boring stuff. Buddhism lacks one element that makes any story compelling. Ironically, that same…