“The portrait of a nation increasingly relaxed about ‘low-level dishonesty’ emerges in a major study” conducted by the University of Essex.  The report “suggests that the ‘integrity problem’ is likely to get worse because young people are more tolerant of dishonest behaviour than the older generation.”

My grandfather once promised to buy me a new bicycle. He made that promise many years ago, right after a politician had promised him that all elderly Americans would soon be given a bonus. Neither of us saw those promises come true. For many generations, promises have been a mainstay of hope for people seeking a better life. Even today, we are bombarded by promises of better jobs, better living, a better economy, and so on. So, are there any promises in which we can take hope?

“The net result of human rights developments in Europe causes great concern… Without concerted government action, the next generation of Europeans may see human rights as an optional extra rather than a core value,” wrote a reporter for the EU Observer.

Before he secured his fame as “Mark Twain,” the iconic American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens started out seeking the wild and adventurous life of a Mississippi riverboat pilot. However, when Clemens discovered that piloting a riverboat was as much a demanding science as an adventure, he almost became too discouraged to continue, fearing that the demands of the job might steal the glory of the life he envisioned.

Cultures around the world have long viewed the shortest day of the year, December 21 or 22 (in the northern hemisphere), as a day for special ceremony and celebration. As the Christmas season—filled with the trappings of modern materialism cloaking ancient paganism—recedes into our memories, it is easy to have a negative view of the “winter solstice season” now behind us.