With the tectonic shifts in our economy, and parallels growing daily relating the Obama-present with the Great Depression, here is a Christmas story. Like most people, the holidays make me feel connected to the past; a time of reflection when moments of insight open up like glowing windows on an...

McCain looked like a piece of chalk, shuffling around the red-carpeted stage, a grumpy old man armed with a double-barreled shotgun surveying his property, Elmer Fudd "hunting wabbits." The cartoon character, who sings, "kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit," aims to...

The black and white cookie just went national. At a bakery in Grand Central Terminal full of commuters rushing home before the vice presidential debate, many slowed at a cookie display advertising, "Today's Special Obama and McCain Black & White Cookies."

"A black and...

Twenty-four hours ago, "The Great Schlep" was launched to inspire an exodus of hundreds of Jewish grandkids to travel south on Columbus Day weekend, descending on the Fort Lauderdale area to visit their grandparents. There, they will not only be floating in pools and having desserts forced upon them,...

Comparing Sarah Palin to Garbo, known as "The Face" and "The Sphinx" seems so wrong in many ways, and right only in one.

Garbo, the Swedish-born actress, one of the most glamorous movie stars of the 1920s and '30s, was famous for...

Imagine American Girl is coming out with a new doll: Sarah Palin.

The thought occurred to me the first time I saw Sarah Palin announced as the Republican vice presidential candidate. Sarah most closely resembles Molly, the American Girl doll growing up during World War II, who is "Lively...

In our era of celebrity, where every life is made public through email, blogs and Facebook, one of the greatest oddities may be that there is not a livelier discussion about the individual's basic need for a more private space.

This is a question I have pondered while on...

"Who's going to play you in the movie?" From hidden in a teenage diary with a key, 92-year-old Florence was revealed in a book. She arrived in New York City last week from her winter home in Pompano Beach, Florida to kick off The Red Leather Diary book tour. We...

Paging through the red leather diary for the first time gave me goosebumps. Little flakes of red leather from the diary's worn cover sprinkled onto my white bedspread. Every page and entry was magical. I couldn't help but thinking, how did it find its way to me, and why?

Three years ago, late for work at The New York Times, I stepped out of my Upper West Side apartment building to encounter a dumpster filled with old steamer trunks plastered with vintage travel labels. Unhesitatingly, I climbed up and into what felt like my own movie.

Among the...