In these tough economic times, many people are nervous about parting with any portion of their hard-earned paychecks to make charitable contributions. For animal-oriented charities, it's an especially difficult time. Why, people wonder, should they give money to animal causes when the world is full of human beings in dire...

Tim Roth is a fine actor, whom I normally only get to see in the occasional independent film. So I was pretty happy to hear that he has a new series, Lie to Me, on network television. In it Roth plays Dr. Cal Lightman, a deception expert who consults with...

I just got my sample ballot for November's general election and boy am I confused. I live in Los Angeles, California, and in addition to races for President, Vice President, United States Representative, State Senator and Member of the State Assembly, we have five run-off races for Judges of the...

Enough about Sarah Palin. We've let John McCain divert us from the issues about which voters really care. This election isn't about whether Palin opposed the "bridge to nowhere," or whether she loves guns, thinks we should drill in Alaska, or opposes reproductive choice for women. It certainly isn't about...

Think you've got it bad where you live? Be glad you don't live in Naples or its environs in the Campania region of southern Italy. If you do, my heart goes out to you.

This story first came to my attention care of Aquarello Italiano, a bi-monthly Italian language news...

People who know me as a hard-core rocker who positively despises musicals might be surprised to find that I am a huge fan of opera. But they shouldn't be. Consider what rock music has come to: Joe Perry jamming with Sanjaya on last year's American Idol finale and Jimmy page...

Yes, you read that right -- Barack Obama reminds me of Joan Jett. They are the only two people I've ever known who have affirmatively chosen to give themselves a larger-than-life persona and then grew to fill it. I saw this a little better with Joan, given that she was...