Once upon a time, not so long ago, and in a land right here, election to the Presidency of the United States of America was a big deal. But no longer. Now, elevation to head of government and state of the world's only superpower is a humdrum affair, a middling...

All along Sugar Hill Harlem, we think it began with Caroline. The slide, the trenchant derision, the Partied and, some hope, parting exile.

"He should have appointed Caroline Kennedy," my neighbor, Ms. Helen, told me on Saturday. By "he," Ms. Helen meant the embattled Governor of the State of New...

Readers' Note: The writer has taken care to shield the identity of the unnamed "she" in this article.

"You and he aren't speaking?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I want to see you, I have to hope you're on the skids with your boyfriend," I said.

"Don't be that way,"...

"It's not oversharing if it's done on TV," Naomi said, then she walked to Clark, and because she was in a "1930s kind of mood" said, "Cigarette me, Big Boy."

We stood on the roof of the Flatiron Building, the steroided bottle rockets and Roman candles coming across the...

On Wednesday, June 17, several of my fourth grade students went off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz, in a production staged by PS 76 and Harlem Children's Zone and dedicated to the organization Teens Making a Difference, founded by Koree Richardson and Samantha Lawrence. With sets...

"You worked as hard as us, you'd all be President," says Violet Weston over the dinner table, her fracturing family gathered in the hours after settling patriarch Beverly Weston in the Pawhuska, Oklahoma earth. Violet Weston, brought to us in her third incarnation from the beautiful mind of Tony Award...

As Elphaba, the tortured, misunderstood and green young woman who would grow up to become the Wicked Witch of the West, makes her way through the Vinkus region of the Land of Oz in Gregory Maguire's marvelous novel Wicked, she encounters the changeling Princess Nastoya--both woman and elephant--who tells her,...

What remains of the bruising grace can make grown men cry. Women, too, in their toughness are not immune. Mary Murphy of So You Think You Can Dance turned stormy eyed during the show's season premiere Thursday after Brandon Bryant's magnetic interpretation of Carl Orff's "O Fortuna."

"I have to...

"Jackie Robinson was a Republican," Clark said to Anwar, then he turned to the bartender. "Do you have white tea? Jasmine, then? Okay, let me get that. So, who do you think should be Speaker?"
"Clyburn," Anwar said.
"That's not going to happen. I think Pelosi is...

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting...