With the death of Kenneth Lay and the pending sentencing of fellow convicted Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling for conspiracy, fraud, lying and manipulating stock prices, one of the last of the major corporate scandals that appeared at the turn of the millennium seems to be slowly coming to an ugly end. The demise of Enron resulted in the loss of jobs, pensions and wealth in the form of stock ownership for tens of thousands of employees and investors. We won’t know Skilling’s sentence for a few months, but that news won’t change much.

The old saying is that all politics is local. That is probably not true, but it is true that for some of us all news is local. Once a person has worked on five continents, there is no news story that can be dismissed. Friends and coworkers are involved in some way with almost everything that comes over the wire. How can a person adjust to unremitting tragedy in this day of 24-hour news? And why should they? Caring is painful.

Pharaohs declared themselves gods. Rulers from Julius Cesar to Queen Elizabeth II print and engrave their pictures on money. Every lord, duke or baronet who ever sat on a horse commissioned a statue of them riding it.

These are all symbols of individuals as nations—personal embodiments of a national personality.

Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate Mom. These days, pampered luxuries such as day spas and getaway trips are fast becoming popular gifts. Still, the most cherished present, according to several holiday websites, is to honor hard-working moms as “Queen for a Day,” complete with breakfast in bed, homemade cards, flowers and family gatherings (where Mom doesn’t have to cook!).

This Earth Day we need to celebrate $3-a-gallon gasoline. Let’s have a big party and congratulate ourselves for this wonderful stroke of good fortune! A barrel of oil costs more now than at any other time in history since 1869! Maybe these good times will get even get better—$4 a gallon anyone?

The current rush to high stakes testing and high school exit examinations appears to be just another of the many “reforms” that have been presented as the panacea for education. Since the early days of Horace Mann in the 1830s and 1840s reform has cascaded over education. Mann described the common school as the “greatest invention ever made by man.” There were devotional Bible readings in schools to make a virtuous America.

Tom Wolfe’s most recent book, I am Charlotte Simmons, tells the story of a naïve rural girl who earns a scholarship to a prestigious urban university. Expecting to find an intellectually stimulating environment, Charlotte instead discovers a culture that promotes alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity and a “party ‘til you drop” mentality. Confused about her new surroundings, Charlotte calls her best friend, Laurie, who suggests that Charlotte needs to leave her small town morals behind and embrace a spirit of experimentation. Laurie says,

People sometimes comment to me that “business ethics” is an oxymoron, but in fact it is a necessity. Business depends on trust and integrity, on the keeping of one's word between client and professional, customer and provider, and employee and employer, within organizations of all kinds and governments at all levels.

Americans, perhaps more than any other culture, are a future-focused people. We celebrate youth, innovation and novelty, while devaluing age and tradition. One way this tendency is expressed is in how we treat the architectural heritage of our communities. In our rush toward the new we too often reject—or simply forget—that which has gone before and that symbolizes the heritage on which our present and future is built.

I recently attended—as an observer—the “Meeting of the Minds,” a presentation and discussion on the Creative Economy Council’s report titled Making the Grass Greener: Recommendations to Retain, Attract, Develop, and Support Knowledge Workers. As a “knowledge worker,” and one interested in helping make Fresno and other Valley communities more vibrant, I was impressed with the report and the discussion, but I walked away with more questions than answers.

A clear challenge was presented at this meeting and left unaddressed.