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What leaders actually do speaks loudest

Values are caught as well as taught. What a leader does is more often more impactful than what is said.  This message came to mind as I read of an organization’s rolling out a development program for supervisors. I applaud them for doing so. I would encourage them to make sure all the leaders, including the C-suite, complete the program. Why? All people impact others by our actions and words, both in a personal capacity and a professional one. To have middle managers complete a program, and to not have all leaders complete it, can send the wrong message. It is important for ...

Valentine’s Day meaning changing?

When we read about the declining global birth rate, the idea of romantic love comes into question.  Do “love and marriage” really “go together like a horse and carriage now?”   Is the concept of “courtly love” out of date like the antique carriages that we only see in old movies? Now more people are single, or couples live together without being married.  Do young people dream of the same happy ending that was the goal of those beautiful people acting in Hollywood before 1975?  According to an online article titled “Valentine’s Day’s History is deeper than you ...

Fanciful policies

Donald Trump’s foreign policy has usually been considerably more creative than his predecessors. He certainly has shown more flexibility than Joe Biden’s feckless diplomatic approach. His Middle East policy differs from Biden’s in that it places greater emphasis on Arab states. Trump’s initiatives on the Russia-Ukraine war show greater flexibility than Biden’s insistence on greater NATO involvement in negotiations. But recently, Trump has drifted into fanciful, more exotic policies. Annexation of Greenland, the Venezuela gambit, and the use of Tariffs as a weapon have ...

Roastmaster president

Only Donald Trump could turn a prayer breakfast into a celebrity roast. During the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump became an insult comedian, aiming a steady stream of invective. For example, he referred to Republican Congressman Thomas Massie as a “moron”. So an event which was initiated in the 1950’s to show a moment of unity amidst division became a vehicle for a seventy-five-minute rant. Not that Trump was made for a moment of national brotherhood week, but his actions have thrown all political caution to the wind. Admittedly, he has never favored rituals, which he regards ...

Two-party system is important

When it comes to contesting statewide and legislative races, the West Virginia Democratic Party should be commended for its candidate recruitment efforts heading into the 2026 elections. I don’t say that because I have a specific bias one way or another. But I do believe that a healthy two-party system is important to making our democratic republic work, because the political parties hold each other accountable. According to the state Democratic Party, there are 22 Democratic candidates seeking nomination to 17 of 19 state Senate seats on the ballot for the May primary, some of ...

Will falling birth rates lead to conservatism?

George Orwell was on to it almost 80 years ago — the problem of below-replacement level birth rates. In a short book written for the Britain in Pictures series in 1947, written just as Britain was emerging from wartime rigors into an uncharted postwar future, Orwell noted that despite an upward blip in birth rates during the war, “the general curve is downward. The position is not quite so dangerous as it is sometimes said to be, but can only be put right if the curve not only rises sharply but does so within ten or at most twenty years.” “Otherwise,” he went on, ...