As details emerge in the case of International Monetary Fund chief and alleged attacker Dominique Strauss-Kahn, my eye is on how his wrecked political clout is getting all the attention. The brutal assault of a hotel housekeeper that Manhattan District Attorney Artie McConnell described yesterday to a judge, who subsequently...

Chicken soup for the 16th-century soul? Well, kind of. If your chicken soup has snails or mole blood in it.

The fact is, many of what we now term homeopathic healers, were women back in the day -- the "day" being early modern history, for instance. But because...

If you heard about the White House poetry event this past Wednesday, you probably heard about it for the wrong reasons. The decision to invite hip-hop artist and actor Common to read poetry drew a surprising amount of furor from the right. Former Bush senior advisor Karl Rove and Fox...

"Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness."
--Blaise Pascal

Why is it so hard for us to tolerate emptiness in our minds? The prevalent...

Always digging deeper into what women over 50 are really thinking (and not just depending on the academic reports and studies, many of which are frightfully discouraging), I asked women on Facebook and Twitter to reveal that one thing that keeps them awake at night, that single nagging worry that...

We all have flashes of inspiration. Sometimes they appear as quiet whispers in the night, as fleeting thoughts in the morning shower or as huge "a-ha!" moments. The question is: Are you giving enough attention to the clues that your inner voice is sending? How can you get more attuned...

Reinvention holds enormous appeal for Baby Boomers like us. Who isn't eager to try something new? Who doesn't have a dream they'd love to bring to life? Who doesn't want to be part of a world-changing venture?

In an op-ed article for The New York Times, the paper's long-time, Pulitzer-Prize-winning...

In my 25 years of working with leaders in many walks of life, including business, sports, education, technology, law and medicine, I've seen leaders who were absolutely awful, decidedly mediocre, above average, and just a few who were truly exceptional, whom I call Prime Leaders. In a recent blog post,...

Currently, my 1- and 4-and-half-year-old are basically media-free. They don't watch any TV or movies and have only seen a handful of two- to three-minute YouTube clips in their lives. Well, okay, Ginger, the eldest, has just recently seen a Pooh-bear movie and "Babies" (a great first film) while sick,...

Few of us are surprised when the young and famous -- à la Reese Witherspoon, Justin Timberlake and Renee Zellwegger -- break up. But when celebrated marriages weather decades of ups and downs and then dissolve? Well, those still have the ability to stun, and can even...

Your boss is evil. Your spouse is lazy. Your teenager doesn't listen. Your best friend won't return your calls. Your relationships are complicated. Any attempt to create lasting harmony when facing the inevitable flaws and countless complexities of another human being can make you feel powerless. But before you condemn...

I'm a baseball fan and a work/family advocate, so I loved the hoopla over the Texas Rangers starting pitcher Colby Lewis taking paternity leave to attend the birth of his daughter.

High-profile fans denounced him in blogs and on the radio for "caring more about being a father than...

Did you know Aesop lived in Greece? According to legend, Aesop's Fables (Aesopica) was a collection of fables created by Aesop (Αίσωπος), a slave and storyteller in ancient Greece (620 to 560 B.C.). Throughout the ages, these fables have been translated and recreated in many forms. The fables are best...

Chances are if you went out on the street and asked every passerby if they believed our government should support our troops, they would say, "Of course!" If you had the opportunity to go into Congress and poll every representative and senator if they support the troops, they would fall...

I think of myself as a fairly easy-going guy -- tolerant, not easily riled up. That is, unless a rude driver cuts me off in traffic. Rudeness triggers the worst in me, and I doubt anyone would describe me as congenial under those circumstances. I can also get moody when...

I've mentioned before that my 10-year-old son seems to have entered adolescence early.

And while that solves certain problems, it opens up a host of others. Like how to monitor what he's up to on the computer.

Whereas that once amounted to limiting his time...

I've been working on a writing project that does not involve my day job at CBS News, and it's interesting to notice the different treatment I receive.

For one thing, when I call or email someone and say I'm from CBS News, I get an immediate response. When I'm on...

Her name was Consuela. She was blonde, Hispanic and hot. It was my first week of my freshman year of college, and I was fully committed to the process of reinventing myself. I would be a dork no longer. Instead, I'd be cool. Confident. Sexy. And...

"What could I possibly have in common with a celebrity?" you may ask. On the surface, it's a valid question. Based on what they read in the tabloids and see online, most people believe that celebrities are very different from average people; some don't even consider celebrities "real" people at...