The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, citing "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," as well as his "work for a world without nuclear weapons."

However, it is rumored that the official citation, when held up...

To say that Americans are confused by the health care debate is an understatement. So, as the nation prepares for the next round, to be kicked off by President Obama's speech to the Congress, I thought it might be useful to provide a beginner's guide to health care in the...

We've all heard stories of people having to fight tooth-and-nail to get insurance companies to pay for procedures they thought were covered by their policy, but the case of Jennifer Gentry appears to take insurer meanness to a new level.

Gentry, 39, suffers from an auto immune condition known as...

Speculation about the reason behind Sarah Palin's surprise resignation as governor of Alaska has centered on her national political ambitions, possible unrevealed legal problems and maybe yet another pregnancy. More likely, Fox News or another TV network has made her an offer she can't refuse.

Why settle for being the...

It was just by coincidence that I became acquainted with Michael Jackson. It was 1983 and my wife, Flora, was pregnant with our first child. Frequently, we ate at a vegetarian restaurant called The Golden Temple. Generally we went during the hours between lunch and dinner. There were few other...

Every year I write an article for Parade magazine about The World's Worst Dictators, and every year I rank Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei among the 10 worst. Clearly, I am rooting for the current Iranian regime to fall and be replaced by a democratic government that respects basic...

Last week, the government of South Africa, bowing to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party, barred the Dalai Lama from entering its country to attend a peace conference, and announced that he would not be allowed to visit South Africa until the 2010 World Cup was over.

Many South Africans...

Americans might like to take a cue from their British cousins in urging their government to replace technically correct government phraseology with words that normal people can understand. The Local Government Association (LGA) is a group that lobbies on behalf of local governments. The LGA has issued a list...

This year 67 countries entered films in the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category. I managed to see 50 of the entries, including all five of the final nominees. The five finalists are a strong group, but two of them stand out as the favorites. Here are brief descriptions...

As the governments of the United States and Iran inch closer to direct talks, an unusual bump in the road may have been hit. In the middle of the crisis surrounding the holding of American hostages, the Carter administration broke diplomatic relations with Iran on April 7, 1980. Beginning a...

Anyone who tries to predict the winners of the Academy Awards inevitably runs into certain categories, like sound mixing, that seem like guesswork. Two such categories are animated short film and live action short film. This year, the ten nominated shorts, distributed by Shorts International, will be shown in theaters,...

In 1964, my father, Irving Wallace, wrote a novel, The Man, about the first black president. For this, my father received both accolades and death threats. On the final page of The Man one of the characters, addressing his friend the president, Douglass Dilman, speaks words that I find still...

This is not the speech I hope that Barack Obama will give; I expect his to be a great one. Instead, this is the speech I would give if I were inaugurated as President of the United States.

In preparing my Inaugural Address, I took the liberty of reading all...

In selecting James L. Jones to be his national security advisor, Barack Obama has chosen a former Marine Corps general who, at the time of his nomination, sat on the board of directors of a leading oil company (Chevron), a leading weapons manufacturer (Boeing), a leading producer of...

I don't think that anyone would accuse me of being soft on George W. Bush. For example, I have argued that Bush should be indicted for violating the U.S. War Crimes Act. However, the man is not all bad. I believe that his lack of racism played a significant...

With so much attention centering on the developing financial crisis, it isn't surprising that other important stories have slipped through the cracks. Nevertheless, as the Bush administration winds down, there has been a surprising flurry of activity regarding its use of torture and illegal imprisonment.

The Supreme Court has...

It is common for presidential candidates to hide details about their lives for fear that if these stories got out, voters would turn against the candidate. For example, George Bush's campaign went to great lengths to keep secret his arrest record and his cocaine use, while John Kerry held back...

One evening in 1964, when I was in high school, a man telephoned our home and warned that he was coming to our house to kill my father. What had my father, Irving Wallace, done to provoke someone to want to murder him? He had written a novel, The Man,...

Tom Lehrer once wrote a song, "The Folk Song Army," that mocked protest singers with the words

Remember the war against Franco? That's the kind where each of us belongs. Though he may have won all the battles, We had all the good songs.

Well, it may be that...