This is being written in early January, 2014.  On checking the news I found an article entitled: CNN Morality Poll Reveals Surprising Trends in America.  The Poll is a follow-up of a Time Magazine poll taken in 1987, and includes that poll’s results as part of current reporting.  I was drawn to the report for several reasons: I retired as President of Simpson College (now University) in California in 1987 on the edge of my 65th birthday, and will turn 91 this first month in January 2014, the year date for this follow-up poll; I am intensely interested in morality, personal and social; and, I have been working on the uses of what constitutes pertinent evidence in discussions about life… Read more

For decades I casually tracked the popular media counselors.  They varied in their approaches, but a common oversight reduced their effectiveness.  They tended to give too much favor to the seekers who wrote to them, although they handed off, sometimes with a bit of sarcasm, to those who were terribly shallow, crude, for piling it on too heavily against their adversaries.  The old general approach worked rather well for interest, entertainment, with some solutions, and celebrity counselors became household friends to millions of readers.  At this writing there is something of a turn that significantly improves mass media communication for the agony columns and electronic systems dealing with personal orientations.  Instead of focusing on the persons complained against, the counsel… Read more