Morality

Washington has put 2011 in the rearview mirror, but the gnawing feeling of a missed opportunity lingers. The Shoremen finished last season with a 5-9 overall record and a 2-6 mark in the Centennial Conference, but they dropped four one-goal contests and a two-goal game. In a four-game stretch, the team lost to Franklin & Marshall, 10-9, defeated Muhlenberg, 9-6, and then lost to Ursinus and Dickinson by respective scores of 9-8 and 10-9. Still, coach Jeff Shirk said there were some positives to take from the setbacks.

Never mind Rick Santorum's flexibility on abortion, which columnist Thomas Schaller cited in questioning the GOP presidential primary contender's morality ("Rick Santorum's moral flexibility," Jan. 11). It's the candidate's profession of "pro-life" credentials one day, and his declared eagerness to wage war on Iran the next, that reveals his shirt-sleeve morality for what it really is. Mr. Santorum's expedient moral relativism, which values unborn fetuses above the victims of U.S. ordnance abroad, is another manifestation of the myopia about war's horror that many Americans share.

Rick Santorum speaks with the force of moral certainty. His sweater vests convey an inner calm during a time of national angst. Like him or not, the former Pennsylvania senator projects the image of a staunch, straight-shooting conservative. But the record shows that Mr. Santorum executed a couple of curious, early-career reversals from what today are unacceptable party-line positions. Digging through old clips this week, I discovered a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from October 1990, the year Mr. Santorum first won election to the U.S. House.

A lot of kickers in Shayne Graham's position might have preferred a short field-goal attempt to ease their debut with a new team. Not Graham, who said he didn't mind the 48-yarder he faced in the first quarter of the Ravens' 20-14 win against the Cleveland Browns on Saturday. “It's easy to say, 'Yeah, I would've liked a shorter kick.' But it's a high-risk, high-reward type of industry that we're in,” he said. “If you go out there and kick a long kick and you make it, the confidence builds and it's exponential - not only for yourself but also for your teammates and everything else.

A couple of years ago, Tammy Schneider, a manager at Glass Jacobson, approached her higher-ups with an idea. The Baltimore accounting firm had business units devoted to specific industries, but Schneider wanted to create one entirely for women. "They were very supportive and they've given me the flexibility to run with it," said Schneider, who is now director of the Women in Business Practice, which offers free finance seminars to women business owners and others. "The culture here [provides]

Praxis Engineering Technologies Inc. is outgrowing its office space in Annapolis Junction, even though most of its 200-plus employees are offsite, “embedded” with various contractors and clients. Praxis' staff has grown 350 percent since the firm's founding in 2002. In the past 12 months the company made 65 new hires, and it plans to hire an additional 75 people over the next year. In theory, having a staff so spread out could make it hard to establish a company culture, but that's not the case at Praxis, say workers and management.

Moral clarity is one of the most seductive traits of social conservatism. Those of us outside that ideology may struggle to untie the Gordian knot of complex moral issues, may wrestle conscience in hopes of compromise, may construct arguments in tenuous terms of, "If this, then that, but if the other thing, then ... " Social conservatives countenance no such irresolution. On issue after issue -- same-sex marriage, gun control, Muslim rights -- they fly straight as a bullet to their final conclusion, usually distillable to the width of a bumper sticker.

The two cardinal sins of pride and gluttony have never been manifested more blatantly and arrogantly than by the immoral spectacle currently playing itself out on the campus of Penn State University in "Happy Valley" Pennsylvania. This institution has dedicated itself to the financial exploitation of a sport that has become an absolute obsession with millions of Americans. In Happy Valley, one man, Joseph Paterno - husband, father, and co-author, with his wife, Sue, of a children's book ("We Are Penn State")

Sports, Baltimore Colts great Joe Ehrmann believes, is not a game. It is too much a part of this country's social fabric, from Saturday morning soccer games to Super Bowl Sundays. It must have a higher purpose than simply to entertain. The striving of the athlete, Ehrmann says, must be equaled by the sober introspection of the men and women who coach them because of the power and influence those coaches carry — in the look on their faces or in the sound of their voices. "One of the great myths in America is that sports build character," Ehrmann writes in his new book, "InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives.

"You win or you don't. Either she's pregnant or she's not. " Those are the words of Maryland running back Davin Meggett after the Terps lost to the Clemson Tigers on Saturday. In addition to providing the quote of the night (and probably the season), he rushed for 69 yards and a score and added a seven-yard touchdown reception in the 56-45 loss. Uncoincidentally, protection was not a major issue for the Terps. Quarterback C.J. Brown was sacked twice. Anyway, amazing pregnancy reference or not, Meggett is right.