one of my fav Canadian websites on government ethics:
http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/ethics-government-concepts-issues-debates

Plato rocks!
Plato teaches us in The Republic that the ideal leader is someone who commits himself and is trained for a life of service and devotion to fellow citizens[1] . The power and authority should be directed to the good of others. When directed primarily to self-interest, Plato also teaches, such power and authority corrupt and are dangerous to the good of all. In other words leadership requires competence and the direction of that competence toward human good.

another worthy read: Robert Fulgham, All I need to know I learned in Kindergarten:
ISBN – 10:034546639X
ISBN – 13:9780345466396

From the Publisher
Fifteen years ago, Robert Fulghum published a simple credo—a credo that became the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Now, seven million copies later, Fulghum returns to the book that was embraced around the world. He has written a new preface and twenty-five essays, which add even more potency to a common, though no less relevant, piece of wisdom: that the most basic aspects of life bear its most important opportunities.
Here Fulghum engages us with musings on life, death, love, pain, joy, sorrow, and the best chicken-fried steak in the continental U.S.A. The little seed in the Styrofoam cup offers a reminder about our own mortality and the delicate nature of life . . . a spider who catches (and loses) a full-grown woman in its web one fine morning teaches us about surviving catastrophe . . . the love story of Jean-Francois Pilatre and his hot air balloon reminds us to be brave and unafraid to “fly” . . . life lessons hidden in the laundry pile . . . magical qualities found in a box of crayons . . . hide-and-seek vs. sardines—and how these games relate to the nature of God. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is brimming with the very stuff of life and the significance found in the smallest details.

always a fan of learning from the UN:
building trust in government in the 21st century- from the 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government, Building Trust in Government ,26-29 June 2007, Vienna, Austria

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN025062.pdf

forgive the action sure why not, “The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” Thomas Szasz

trust barometer current reading is horizontal left at the zero position.