I can think, off the top of my head, of a dozen sad stories this holiday season. But for some reason the story of Denise Anderson won't let me go.

Denise is 42, a single mom. Her son Army Spc. Corey Shea was killed in Mosul last year shortly...

I'm still trying to get my mind around the idea that a little-known congressman named Bart Stupak hijacked the entire health care bill at the last second. While also managing to infuriate millions of American women like myself.

How did Stupak do it? And all with the apparent...

I know this isn't nice, but I was secretly pleased when the President outed Malia for getting a C on her science test. As a parent I found the news immensely reassuring. Why, the elder First Daughter has as much trouble juggling homework, sports and her social life as...

Nicholas Kristof has found himself in some pretty tough spots. Brothels in Cambodia, refugee camps in Darfur, villages in Pakistan. Still, this last one might take the cake. "The night before I was in Ogden, Utah," says the New York Times' columnist, as if he couldn't quite believe he'd...

I'm so glad my children aren't in elementary school anymore. Otherwise I'd be spending the whole Labor Day weekend fretting over next Tuesday instead of cleaning the ashes out of my ears. 


Tuesday, as you all know, unless you've been preoccupied with your house burning down or ominous...

I have to say it's really embarrassing to be a white person these days. Talk about behaving badly. Who would have ever thought that nice white people from Missouri and Pennsylvania could get so riled up about the Weimar Republic, say, or the Founding Fathers? Especially when the topic at...

I'd like to thank Nancy Pelosi for nixing the resolution to honor Michael Jackson. It's not like Congress doesn't have anything to do. (Health care, anyone?) But it was a spectacularly bad idea from the start. And now with revelations about the late singer's drug problems, the coroner's office subpoenaing...

Of course there had to be a question about the tea-bagging remark.

"On April 15th, as many as 700,000 Americans gathered to protest government spending in what were called tea parties," a young man in the audience begins. "Now, you dismissed these voices with a crude sexual joke saying,...

I really wasn't planning on writing about my daughter going to her prom. But sometimes the most unexpected occasions take on political meaning.

Don't get me wrong. It was priceless, one of those moments you hope your teenager will eventually appreciate you showed up for. Before the dance my daughter...

Now that we've gotten those infernal tea-bagging parties out of the way, let's get to what's really important: sexting and teens.

I hope I don't need to explain what this trend is, because I'd just as soon leave that to Urban Dictionary or to Good Morning America, which recently held...

It sure was a big news day. Between Bernie Madoff being led off to prison, Levi and Bristol mercifully breaking up (now there was a stunner!), and Oprah bringing on BFF Tyra and devoting an hour-long show to "all the Rihannas of the world," I had a terrible time deciding...

This hardly seems like the time to worry about cholera in Zimbabwe. Or the rapidly deteriorating availability of medical care for the dying and women unfortunate enough to be pregnant. Heaven knows we've got our own problems, what with zombie banks, people losing their homes and suddenly budget-conscious GOP governors...

Things are getting gloomy in California, and I don't just mean our stormy skies.
On Friday the Governator told more than 200,000 Californians who work for the state to stay home. From now on they'll get two days off a month until June 2011.
I know. You're...

If you want to see the action in Gaza, the good news is you don't have to be a foreign correspondent. Actually, Israel has nixed reporters from entering the country for now because they don't want them getting in the way or information getting out. Or for journalists to get...

Here we are in Soweto. We just drove past Archbishop Desmond Tutu's house, the gentle Anglican cleric who preached against apartheid. I would have missed the undistinguished house entirely had not Eric, our local Soweto guide, pointed it out. It looked like virtually every other place on the crowded block,...

So I'm crawling on my hands and knees through a space about the size of a sewer drain. It's about 105 degrees and hot as Hades and so dark I think I might pass out from fright. But passing out right now would be a very bad thing to do....

Today is World AIDS Day. I know, big yawn. Another day devoted to another horrific pandemic and then after feeling terrible -- or not -- we'll all forget about it. But here in South Africa, where I have been traveling the past two days with a group of American and...

I suppose this is an extreme way to get out of basting a turkey every half hour. Or watching that disturbing Sarah Palin video where she's aggressively chatting away while a turkey is being slaughtered behind her. Or listening to Hank Paulson explain why Americans need to pony up another...

Tomorrow my 18-year-old son Jesse will be one of the millions of young people to cast his first vote for president. As a political junkie and a parent I couldn't be more thrilled. This one of those milestones you look forward to when you wonder why you braved 30 hours...

It's been a few fun days watching the Palin-McCain campaign. Oops! I meant the McCain-Palin campaign.

Granted it hasn't been easy with these two mavericks to tell who's really in charge, what with Palin contradicting McCain on issues like throwing in the towel in Michigan and whether to dredge...