There is a rhythm to every nation's history--a pattern that repeats over the centuries, that creates forward movement, pulls back, pushes ahead. So it is with Iran in modern times: about every two to three decades, major change--a war, a famine, the overthrow of a dynasty--occurs with unmistakable ramifications. The...

It gets worse.

You've been betrayed by the banks, the investment firms, the government. You skimp and borrow and try to send your kids to the best college they can get into; or you work the night shift at some bar and put yourself through college; or you've got...

It gets worse.

You've been betrayed by the banks, the investment firms, the government. You skimp and borrow and try to send your kids to the best college they can get into; or you work the night shift at some bar and put yourself through college; or you've got...

Imagine working for the same institution for thirty years, always earning below minimum wage, never getting any benefits whatsoever, then being let go without notice, without an explanation, without a severance package or a retirement fund or even a $.50 pen from Staples as a souvenir.

You think Wal-Mart...

Imagine working for the same institution for thirty years, always earning below minimum wage, never getting any benefits whatsoever, then being let go without notice, without an explanation, without a severance package or a retirement fund or even a $.50 pen from Staples as a souvenir.

You...

I'm not one of those women who see a male-dominance conspiracy at every corner. And I understand that Hillary has baggage, while Obama doesn't (never mind that's because he hasn't been around long enough or done much). I realize that he's taller, younger, more charming than she, and that the...

Excerpt from my new novel, Caspian Rain, published by MacAdam/Cage:

SHE'S SIXTEEN YEARS OLD -- a young woman in a city with blue mountains.

She's walking to school with her books in her arms. She has on a faded gray uniform, a pale lipstick that she has...

I don't believe for a minute that Bush, Cheney, and their posse care an iota whether the people of Iraq live in freedom or not. They went into Iraq for the oil contracts, and the construction contracts, and all the billions of other dollars that their buddies have made from...

The civil war in Iraq, and the battle between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza, while tragic, do serve a useful purpose: they put the lie to the myth, created by Muslim nation-states and bought into by many Western governments, that the source of all the trouble in the Middle East...

So he's the biggest disaster ever to hit this country, Bush still needs a job after his second term as president is over. I know he's been in semi-retirement since he took office anyway, and he does have that ranch, but can he really be content wielding an electric saw...

On Monday this week, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (I’m sorry; I find this whole name change thing with the Pope rather spooky) went on record against a referendum that would ease restrictions on artificial insemination and embryonic research in Italy. Shortly before that (this guy doesn’t waste time) he had urged...