Media sociopaths

A few articles in the news recently illustrate a disturbing failure in that can be seen in a multitude of situations throughout society. These cases are from the U.S., but I imagine the pattern applies just about anywhere. In Dallas, Texas, Antoine Flowers, hired for a top information technology post at Dallas City Hall, resigned after four months on the job. Two weeks later, he was arrested for stealing and pawning $10,000 worth of the city's iPads. The real question is how he got hired in the first place. Flowers' resume stated that he'd worked as a software engineer at NASA, was a college education director and had served in the Army, with top-secret clearances. This did not raise …

What happens when we fail to take action against bad behaviorRead More

Here's a scary fact about the prevalence of sociopaths, also called psychopaths: Dr. Robert Hare, the psychologist who developed the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), says that approximately 1% of the general population meets his definition of a psychopath. But in a study of 200 high-potential executives, he found that 3.5% of them fit the profile of a psychopath. That means there are 3.5 times a many psychopaths in corporate offices as there are on the streets. One of them, in my opinion, is Carl R. Greene, former executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA). I've posted several articles about him since he was fired from the agency that he ran for 12 years in …

Doing business with a sociopath is bad businessRead More

The Penn State bombshell exploded on November 4, 2011. That's when court documents were posted online indicating that Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach, would be charged with 40 counts related to sex crimes involving minors. Since then, Jerry Sandusky has been convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Graham Spanier, the Penn State president, Gary Schultz, a vice president, and Tim Curley, the athletic director, were all charged with crimes related to an alleged cover-up of Sandusky's predatory actions. They are awaiting trial. Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach, was not charged with anything. Paterno died on January 22, 2012.  …

Revisiting Joe Paterno’s involvement in the Jerry Sandusky caseRead More