Schleck and Contador Spark Global Ethics Debate
July 19th, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Civility, Public Values, Sports
LONGMONT, Colo. — I was surprised when Andy Schleck’s back wheel popped up and he jolted to a dead standstill in this morning’s stage of the Tour de France. I was more surprised when Alberto Contador rode past without hesitation. I had just said to my kids watching the tour with me, “Watch this, I bet Contador slows to a crawl.” I was wrong. My favorite historical moments of the Tour are the occasions when Lance Armstrong waited for Jan [...]
Read more...Taking Back Our Nation Begins at Home
May 28th, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Atwood, Civility, Community, Public Leaders, Public Values
The Tea Party Movement is the most recent vehicle people use to express their anger toward government. The 1992 Ross Perot campaign for President was a vessel for similar discontent nearly twenty years ago. Concern over surging national debt fuels the Tea Party now and Ross Perot in the early 1990s. It was twenty years ago that The Harwood Institute released the report Citizens and Politics. This report was covered by nearly every major news outlet in America. It was [...]
Read more...Convenience is the enemy of meaning.
May 28th, 2010 by John Creighton in WarmUp
Tags: Civility, Public Values
Some rough thoughts to warm up on a Friday morning… “Conveniences is the enemy of meaning.” That sub headline caught my eye this morning. It comes from a longer Fast Company article about Memorial Day: Reinventing Memorial Day: Creating Inconvenience and Relevance. Providing consumers convenience is what drives much of the private sector. Business people spend their careers figuring out how to make the consumer experience more convenient. I enjoy convenience. For instance, I don’t check bags when I fly. [...]
Read more...Setting a Good Example
May 6th, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Civility, Public Values, St. Vrain
Sean Hannity (Fox News) and Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) could learn a few things from the students at Silver Creek High School in Longmont, Colorado. The Silver Creek students know how to have “adult” conversations — as compared to the juvenile taunts that pass for “analysis” on cable news channels. Earlier this week, I sat down to flip channels, unwind after an evening meeting and, I hoped, to get some news about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. [...]
Read more...Required Civic Virtue
May 2nd, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Civility, Community, Longmont, Public Values
I have written before that Americans are becoming Accidental Extremists. Dan Yankelovich, one of the pioneers of public opinion research, discussed the negative consequences of “self-isolating communities” in a speech to the Drucker School of Management. He said Americans are subjecting themselves to group-think, which erodes America’s historically unique ability to solve problems. This is, he says, one of the critical symptoms plaguing public life. Self-isolating communities exist in our great metropolises and our smallest towns. But, people living in [...]
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