The immigrants who live in the United States illegally, by and large, work hard, pay taxes, obey the law and have families just like yours and mine. At least in the same percentage as the general population.

They want nothing more than to be here legally. So their children can...

Forget the trip to Walmart for the new crockpot. The corsage. The all you can eat brunch. Let's do something this Mother's Day in the spirit of the woman for whom Mother's Day was created: Ann Reeves Jarvis.

Ann was a community activist who fought to improve sanitary conditions in...

The girls were great on SNL. Clever. Funny. Smart. And then the show fell into audition segments for cast members to sell their vacuous movie franchise ideas.

Enough.

Step up. This show has the possibility of being a real political force. And every week it throws it away.

Rarely, does...

Some years ago MOMA had an exhibit on the history of photography. The general premise of the exhibit was that when photography first appeared on the scene people had their pictures taken because they were important to the culture. But it wasn't long before it was reversed and people were...

We're talking to ourselves.

And we're not saying anything that's going to help win this election.

Everyone who cares knows that Sara Palin is a born again, right wing Republican. That she's a right-to-life, anti-gay, anti-global-warming, book-banning kind of gal.

No one seems to care.

The package and not...

I couldn't believe my ears. NPR. A perfectly sane sounding commentator was discussing what seemed like a dilemma for the Congress. How to balance the concerns of the national economy against the concerns for the environment. How to shape our national policy on global warming. And not once in the...

It's occurred to me lately that everything is about the story.

I was listening to an NPR report on Barack Obama and I realized that he knows how to tell his. That's why everyone's so excited about him.

Bush knows how to do it. Maybe his story isn't...

A lot of people are strangely hopeful. Many won't admit it. It's not politically correct. But the feeling is there. The Hamas majority in the Palestinian election last week has opened the door to possibility.

The first ray of hope came from the knowledge that the election wasn't managed. The...

My brother died in June. Taken by cancer. Too young. Full of hope and possibility.

Last night another cancer killed a man about the same age. The paraphernalia familiar. IVs and gurneys. Lethal drugs dripping into his veins. Ending a life that had found redemption. But this time the...

A friend of mine sent me the following article:

Slain Soldier's Mom Rejected by Gold Star Mothers

Membership Restricted to U.S. Citizens

By JIM FITZGERALD, AP

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (May 27) - Everyone agrees that Ligaya Lagman is a Gold Star mother, part of the long line of mournful women...

How do they explain "a culture of life" that supports the death penalty? Freedom that denies "choice"? "Free elections" in Iraq where not everyone gets to vote? An American culture that allows for prison torture and spying on its own populace? Cut backs in Social Security and health care. Compliments...

And we're not listening. So they wage guerrilla war. Shooting at each other and at us. In schools. On freeways. Copying our violence. And it still doesn't get our attention. We don't see ourselves in the mirror they hold up.

The recent Iranian movie, set on the Iraqi/Kurdistan border, Turtles...