Michael Port tells a great (and hilarious) story in his book “Book Yourself Solid” about the danger of trying to please everyone:An old man, a boy, and a donkey were going to town. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked beside him. As they went along they passed some people who [...]

A week ago, I wrote about how Navajos view every day as sacred.
I just read an essay by an English professor who has lived on the Reservation for the past 10 years, and I think it describes well how Navajos see everything– and not just every day– as sacred and spiritual.
…In Navajo, though, no single [...]

We were in four states over the last three days– New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah.
That meant lots and lots and lots of driving, but we got to visit the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. Breathtaking scenery!

We’re conducting our college prep summer classes for high school students in Diné College, a two-year community college in Crownpoint, New Mexico.
I recently read about Diné College’s educational philosophy:
Shitsijí hózhoo doo naashá:  With beauty before me, I walk.
Shikéédéé  hózhoo doo naashá: With beauty behind me, I walk.
Shiyaagi hózhoo doo naashá: With beauty below me, I [...]

We spent a whole day at a sheep farm in Crystal, New Mexico. Here’s a picture of the sheep running out of the corral when we opened the gate (we let them out so that they could graze).
The funny– and slightly annoying– thing was that we spent the next two hours looking for them, but [...]

I just learned that the Navajo have a special ceremony to commemorate the first time a baby laughs. Awesome
According to Navajo (or Diné) tradition, a baby is considered to be of two worlds at birth: that of the holy people and that of the earth people. As weeks pass, adults wait and listen [...]

A wise man once said to me, “People don’t do what you expect. People do what you inspect.”
This saying is relevant to the topic of discussion for Lesson 11– the ethics of privacy.
One of the readings dealt with the issue of companies monitoring their employees’ e-mails. How ethical/unethical you think this practice is depends largely [...]

I learned many things about abortion in this class on the ethics of reproduction.
For one, I learned that many Christians believe that abortion is not morally wrong. (Before this class, I’d never heard a Christian say that abortion is completely okay!) And they have Bible verses to back up their beliefs. For example, Numbers 3:15-16 [...]

Today I was the star of the show. Well, kind of
The topic today was the ethics of romance, and I’m the only Duke male undergraduate in the class.
So the class decided that my views would be representative of the entire Duke male student population. Well… for anyone who knows me, I think you’ll [...]

Lesson 8 focused on the ethics of social equality, and we spent most of the class talking about affirmative action.
Before coming to Duke, I had never heard anyone use the term “affirmative action.” So for those of you who aren’t familiar with what it is, here’s the ever-dependable Wikipedia definition:
“The term affirmative action refers to policies [...]