"News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising." With this quote, Sir Harold Evans, our era's acknowledged master journalist, summarized much of what I find crucial in his newest book, My Paper Chase. By resurrecting Lord Northcliffe's astute observation at the Washington, D.C. launch of...

Rejoice!  Today is the Longest Day Of The Year.  No, it’s not a solstice.  Today we right the wrong of so-called “daylight saving” and get back closer to being in sync with the sun in our obsession for tracking the...

When the U.S. Senate finally stopped Joseph McCarthy’s violent, devastating attacks on American values, 22 Senators SUPPORTED McCarthy.  They were all Republicans.  

I was maligned today for being Thankful. And I'm grateful; thankful, actually. It offered me the opportunity to think more about America's legacy -- and future.

Specifically, I was attacked for an earlier post as un-American for acknowledging Canada's Thanksgiving celebration, for not celebrating America's and for suggesting that...

If you're feeling kind of Monday-ish, consider this. This and every second Monday of October, an entire First World nation takes the day off to cherish all that is best. Today is Thanksgiving Day. In Canada.

On this Monday on which I choose to join my Canadian friends in...

How refreshing! The President of the United States held up as an exemplar of how the world can, should and must progress. That view is much to be preferred to one of a renegade nation's arrested adolescent figurehead, shoehorned into power by a judicial coup and cheating to keep it,...

Death, dying and an abrupt step back from death's door have dominated our summer. Lessons to date: you'd better have fabulous insurance and a lot of it, know the difference between "gravely" and "mortally" ill, and have tenacious advocates looking out for your best interests, on whichever side of The...

America has the The Worst "Health Care" Money Can Buy.

My husband grew up in Alabama. He tells this blessedly-shortened-story, as a living witness, with a straight face.

"Neighborhood kids back-and-forth. 'Bet I can hold my hand in the fire ant nest longer than you can. Becha can't. Bet I...

A tightly held secret is being kept from today's young people. Not having children can be great! Amazingly, it appears to be time -- again -- to tell young women and men alike: whether or not you have children really is up to you. And yes, two people who relish...

There's a reason we caution those who live in glass houses about throwing stones.

Republicans calling Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor "racist" should look in the mirrors of their brittle glass house. If they choose to open their eyes, they can readily see decades of Republican racism, and denial....

I admit it. I feel a special connection, an affinity even, with the Class of 2009. Why? Because my husband and I are both "Class of '68." This Class, like ours, will experience very directly the evolutionary reality: the only constant is change. Like us too, these young people will...

Being from Chicago, when I hear, "You can't expect a well-oiled Chicago political machine to understand conservation's importance in salvaging the environment," I take it badly. So here's a test, and a big one. How fast can President Obama say, "Yanking endangered species protection from wolves and polar bears was...

I really, REALLY, don't like doing this. There are many positive things going on in our world on which I would like to focus. HOWEVER, the bad guys are in full-howl, frothing-at-the-mouth mode and, not content with the wreckage already wrought, seem determined to drive us all permanently into the...

He had arrived early, John Hope Franklin, a jewel of humanity who'd lingered long on the grounds of the New Schools at Carver, deep in Atlanta's 'hood. No apology necessary, he assured me, flumoxed that he'd gotten there before us. The twinkling eyes that had captivated students for 70 years...

Want a growth industry for hard times? Try corporate cynicism.

Call me radical -- I don't think being out-of-doors should be life-threatening. Southern Company, a power company behemoth providing some 5 percent of the United States' electricity by burning coal in almost three-fourths of their 77 plants, acts on a...

"Don't be disrespectful!" reverberated across my Eisenhower-era childhood. "Why not?" I'd disrespectfully ask? Even a kid could see that the McCarthy-ites, the John Birch-ers did not deserve respect. So why now would I roll over to the likes of the odious Limbaugh kid from Poplar Bluff, Missouri (where some of...

I've been knee-deep in developing a process and instrument for evaluating the performance of a president. It's harder than it looks, and it's not even President Obama of whom I speak. The task has, however, focused me on issues of authentic leadership as well as what is required of those...

Much as stars enthrall me, I don't expect them to "align" purposefully. So how shall we account for two of humanity's authentically great people -- Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln -- being born on this day 200 years ago? That's life!

Both men loosed furies. Both were greeted with reactionary...

Finally, the national nightmare ends. Finally, an adult, calling us all to put away childish things. Finally, surcease from Joe McCarthy's America into which I was born. Finally, The Usurper relieved of authority he wrongfully exercised these eight terrible years.

Yet it took Senator Diane Feinstein's "Thank you, Mr....

Years ago, when an ice storm raged between us and our destination, we pulled off the road, got a room, and walked to the movies. "Waiting to Exhale" was showing. I use that title to answer, "What'd you do for the holidays?" Listening to the resurrection of democracy is another...