"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."
-Jason Collins

The locker rooms, the showers of male professional team sports -- the hallowed last bastion of American machismo -- have just been bust open, forever evolved, by one brave NBA center named Jason Collins.

Okay, this...

The 24-hour pool swim in Palm Springs was a bonding community experience. I have so many people to thank. First of all, except for my two longtime buddies, Candace and LeAnne, I had no idea if I'd be swimming most of the hours alone.

But my friend Peg McCloud, who...

Were you rooting for Tiger through this weekend's Masters tournament? Were you rooting against him? Or did you basically not care?

Me? I don't care about his marriage infidelities. Not really. Not any more than I cared about Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica L. What if we knew every sex-life...

Gay rights take center stage as the civil rights issue of our time.

This week's Supreme Court hearings, based on two separate cases, evoked a wide swath of views from the justices and attending attorneys.

It is fascinating to peer inside the deep-thinking brains of our Supreme Court justices and...

Catherine Opie is widely known as one of today's preeminent fine arts photographers. At the young age of 46, just a few years ago, an astoundingly impressive range of Cathy Opie's illustrious career was on glorious display in a four-story retrospective of her entire body of work at the...

There are passionate and unique communities of sport all over the U.S. (all over the world) -- fans of certain teams, certain cities, who gather far away from home in unified spirit for their old home team.

It's one thing to be in San...

If Oprah's star is perhaps not quite as high in the sky as it once was, she is still the ultimate stage for a fallen hero's ultimate confession.

Back against the wall, nowhere else for the once-invincible Lance to turn, he has now given Oprah "the whole story."

And how...

She was born August, 2005, on the streets of Turks and Caicos. There were six puppies. The mother was poisoned and died that first night. Three of her pups didn't make it through the night. The other three did survive on the streets for...

We are a country once again immersed in collective grief. The questions abound. The answers escape us.

I heard Piers Morgan of CNN say, after the unspeakable tragedy in Newtown, Conn., that these types of "American" gunning down of innocents simply do not happen in his homeland, England.

We certainly...

I've been here before. I bet you have, too.

My dog Scout, only just 7, has entered into end stage renal failure. It won't be long now. No matter the daily chores, I find myself in that otherworldly, preoccupied state of heartache....

We are living the year of the 50th Anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War. And this week, we find ourselves at the 30th Anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

58,282 names engraved in dark granite. 58,282 individuals who engaged in a war largely maligned and unsupported by their...

Was in NYC this past Thursday night and just couldn't sleep. Two-thirty a.m. went down to the hotel fitness center and, just what I needed, set myself up in front of this life-size, back-lit, black-and-white of Billie Jean King in her fierce...

The debate has grown more contentious all week long: To run this Sunday's NYC Marathon... or not.

Mayor Bloomberg has so far given his blessing to run the famous race, his reasoning being that the annual upbeat energy of thousands bringing spirit... and of course bringing several million dollars...

It is not overstatement to say that Lance Armstrong's careening fall from grace has no rival in recent American history. Perhaps only Richard Nixon earns equal status of disgrace.

This summer, with news of the full USADA (U.S. Anti-Doping Association) report alleging of Lance's doping throughout his spectacular Tour de...

So many painful memories of 9/11 were recounted Tuesday. And, understandably, one aspect of despair for quite a few individuals who experienced direct loss that horrific day eleven years ago is that the tributes to their loved ones seem to be smaller, fewer, less significant as time goes by.

I...

Shariff Billy Nyad died three years ago, age 57, having lived most of his adult life on the streets of Boston. For those of you who are familiar with mental illness in your family, you...

I joined a HuffPost live chat yesterday. The discussion centered around our disappointment when we don't quite fully succeed in a quest.

It helped me immensely to hear from three people who threw their best selves into their respective projects over the last few years... and yet came up...

The disappointment of exiting the ocean yesterday, after 42 hours of once again attempting to swim from Cuba to Florida, weighs heavily on my heart.

The first go was 1978, as a prime-time athlete, age 28. Unpredicted fierce winds whipped up and blew us west.

Perhaps ironically, that time spent...

The London Games have closed. They were at once glorious and cruel, as are all Olympics.

Glorious in that they showcase the core of human endeavor, all the more special in that the athletes each have this treasured opportunity for only a day...