A Manson follower and a terrorist bomber recently requested “compassionate release” from prison because they are dying of cancer. Do we have a moral responsibility to release terminally ill prisoners?... Read full article

The search for happiness is back. Increasingly chronicled in newspapers, blogs, books and TV, finding your bliss is finding its way once again into our conversations and our consciousness. But do we have a responsibility to be happy?... Read full article

One by one, people have been supposedly sorry for brazen bonuses, Ponzi ploys, steroid secrets, bloodying their girlfriends, and other assorted blunders of judgment. But does apologizing now mean you never have to accept responsibility?... Read full article

On Halloween night four years ago in Los Angeles, a car slammed into a light pole at 45 mph, critically injuring a young woman and leaving her a paraplegic. Also shattered in the accident was the very definition of what it means to be a Good Samaritan, undermined by a troubling new legal question: Can you be sued for trying to save someone’s life?... Read full article

In the short film Be Good, Joe is the ultimate slacker, hung over and screwed up.
But during a rare sober moment as he turns 30, Joe decides it’s suddenly time to become a responsible person. Lurching hilariously toward that goal, he’s more shocked than anyone at the surprise ending that finally gives meaning to his life.

Be Good was directed by Barney Cokeliss.... Read full article

Consider the apology: Is saying “I’m sorry” out of fashion? A lost art? A species so endangered we need a law to protect it? “The Apology Act” is a piece of legislation up for debate in Canada and aimed at allowing people to say “I’m sorry” without assuming legal responsibility for their actions.... Read full article

Sometimes a painful loss can bring a blissful reunion. But a happy ending was not what Grammy-nominated violinist Philippe Quint envisioned when he saw a taxi pull away from his New York City apartment with a four million dollar Stradivarius violin on loan to him still inside.... Read full article

Eric Wills has gone postal in a provocative new way. Wills is a mailman in St. Petersburg, Florida, with 480 people on his route. The mail he delivers to them—from high-end catalogues to bundles of bills—speaks volumes. So, as it turns out, does the condition of their yards.... Read full article

When adventurer Steve Fossett’s plane went missing over the remote Nevada desert in September 2007, there was no distress signal. But 50,000 people heard a call for help. Without knowing each other or the man they were looking for, they formed an altruistic army of volunteer searchers, unprecedented in size and extraordinary in method.... Read full article

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about “The Gift”: a woman finds an envelope with $770 cash—lost by a frantic holiday shopper on the floor of a toy store—and takes it directly to the police. When police return the money to the grateful shopper, the Good Samaritan thinks the story is over. But it was just beginning.... Read full article