As a runner, former Boston resident and frequent marathon attendee, I observed the mayhem in New England this week with special horror. The pressure-cooker bombs, which may have been packed with nails and ball bearings, seem to have been timed to explode when a high concentration of runners...

Like most parents of high school seniors, we've been waiting all week to hear the news from the colleges our daughter applied to. We beseech thee, college admissions officers, to see the bright side in our eldest child, to find beauty in her imperfections, to regard the blemishes on her...

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue arrived last week in the mail, and there was Kate Upton, smiling distractedly, mouth open. She must have been cold, posing on a boat next to a glacier in Antarctica, and wearing nothing under her (unzipped) white ski jacket but a tiny bikini bottom. Her...

It's fun to hate Washington, especially now. Between the inter-party cursing, purity pledges, and occasional weeping fits, our elected leaders, horns locked, manage to find a way to do not much of anything. And why should they? Having gerrymandered their way to job security, many in...

Another shooting.

Those of us at a comfortable distance from the disaster follow the story, obsessively. We cry when we think of those children, when we consider the shattered parents, and all the ruined lives. For a few days, many of us will shake our fists at the gun...

I turned 50 last week. My younger friends smiled sympathetically and offered hugs, as if I'd just received a cancer diagnosis. Older ones grinned conspiratorially, as if I'd suddenly succumbed to their evil charms and crossed over to the dark side.

When a kind friend of the same age leaned...

With the power back on at last, after eight days of generator-induced quasi-civilization, it's time to consider the lessons we might learn from this debacle. And I don't mean lessons of the get-a-generator-in-advance, prune-that-wobbly-tree variety. I'm referring to life skills and states of mind that our collective Sandy experience might...

After my father died a month ago, I spent hours immersing myself in his life's work in order to write an accurate obituary and eulogy. This process reminded me of all he accomplished -- as an entrepreneur, pilot, farmer, and civic leader -- and all he preached about character and...

School began again for my three teenagers last week and already dread interrupts my enjoyment of the long, quiet days. Don't get me wrong: I can bear parting with them each morning. What haunts me is the certainty that another school year will bring out the anxious suburban mother in...

Teenage drinking and mild recreational drug use are a part of the social fabric in Summit, New Jersey, where I live. Like many wealthy east coast suburbs populated with competitive and high-achieving families, my town teems with parents who run around enhancing their children's college options and stressed-out kids who...

It's juice cleanse day for my daughter, Julie, and me. We decided weeks ago, after too many days of too much garbage, that we'd try a cleanse. Many friends had experimented with them, and a store in town packaged the juices, promising just the right blend of fruits, vegetables and...

James Q. Wilson died early Friday morning at a hospital in Boston. The public policy intellectual who published a staggering number of books and articles on all manner of issues, including crime, politics, character and marriage, was 80.

Wilson was not a household name, but in the scholarly world...

It was 8:45 at night when Carrie Strickland set aside The Blind Side to answer the call she'd dreaded and yet somehow expected. "My son said, 'I think its Daddy,'" she told me two years and a day after she heard the news. In fact, the Red Cross was on...

Today is SAT day -- our daughter's first. It's 6:10.

"You want the usual?"

"Um... yeah," she says, eyes on her phone.

As I pop the bagel into the toaster, my husband Bob scurries out of his office, still in his Life is Good pajamas. His up-tempo gives...

Please circle the correct answer. In New Jersey, a bully is someone who:

a. Pulls Kyle's shorts down in gym.
b. Starts an "I hate John" Facebook page.
c. Sends the following text message to Jacob: "You suck #@$%"
d. Scolds Erin in front of class for...

Like their classmates around the state, 4th graders in public schools in Summit, N.J. this year will be shepherded into class by the school nurse, separated by gender, and formally introduced to "human growth and development" -- what we used to call sex ed. They'll sit through a power point...

With school starting again in a few weeks, parents already are agitating about their kids' teachers. I should know: I pleaded with my son's guidance counselor to spare him a year with the 8th grade English teacher who denies that "fishes" is a legitimate word. We fear that time spent...

In his interview last week with Chris Matthews at the Nantucket Film Festival, director and screenwriter Paul Haggis interrupted the lovefest with the audience just once. How, Matthews asked, did all those women James Bond screwed -- especially in Casino Royale, which Haggis helped write -- avoid getting pregnant? "They've...

Aging punk rockers and the New York Times might not seem to have much in common, but staying afloat in a rapidly changing digital world is a theme shared by The Other F Word and Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, two films that were screened over...

It's pouring rain on Nantucket, but we don't mind. We're here for the The Nantucket Film Festival, which opened June 22nd with screenings of Cars 2 and Buck.

This is the festival's 16th year. "In our early years, it was a much more ragtag event," Artistic Director Mystelle Brabbee said...