SaraKay Smullens

Unless you have been living under a rock you know that Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, a CNN political contributor and a working mom, in uncharacteristic emotional blindness, stated on CNN's AC360 that Ann Romney has "actually never worked a day in her life."

In so doing, Rosen made it...

OK, fellow lovers of nostalgia. We know just who we are. We are those who love to put our feet up for terrific diversion -- knowing in Mad Men we will experience phenomenal style and extraordinary period accuracy over substance -- and so what! For four seasons we have lived...

1. Without risk, there cannot be life.


During youth and the years of building educational, professional and personal lives it is necessary to reach out and try new things, sometimes facing deep obstacles. Perhaps we yearn to follow a path that our parents object to, either personally or in other...

In the escalating political climate of ugliness, division, disregard for educational opportunity, and religious unrest and confusion, a new book has led to more bricks thrown at a White House many have seen as a touchstone for hope and opportunity.

This latest memoir by Mimi Alford, Once Upon a Secret:...

The recent events at Penn State and the ongoing uncovering of sexual abuse of hopeful innocents have sickened and saddened. If you live in Pennsylvania, as I do, the tragedies seem endless and terribly close to home -- the violated young children; college students shamed by their university leadership; the...

In my last blog I wrote about love that can be expressed, sometimes for the first time, from a dying parent. Now I am going to focus on the result when rage, disappointment, and hate are expressed from the grave.

I urge readers who are estranged from, frustrated by, and...

My office phone, also in my home, rang at 6 a.m. My client's voice a whisper due to shock. Her mother, enduring a long illness yet completely coherent the evening before, had died peacefully in her sleep an hour before. This day was my client's 30th birthday.

One of my...

Hundreds of thousands of dollars later Dominique Strauss-Kahn, his wife Anne Sinclair, and his lawyers are rejoicing at what an August 24th New York Times headline called a "Quick and Quiet End to the Strauss-Kahn Case." Perhaps this group should hold the champagne...

Meanwhile Manhattan DA, Cyrus R. Vance,...

"YOU are going to Walk with the Philly SlutWalkers on August 6th , AND dress in a slutty way?" a very good and savvy friend asked me for the second time --- her voice incredulous.

"Yes, I am -- in an age appropriate slutty way," I responded.

"What's that?"...

This blog is a plea to President Obama to stand up against a growing malignancy of ideas with no basis, and, with passion and plain talk (and no fancy words), explain to our citizens why we must join together and fight for the health and sanity of our country.

There are enormous and complicated conflicts between the underpinnings of a puritanical American and overwhelming sexual urges that can seem impossible to contain and understand. Such conflicts make people so uncomfortable that rather than speak seriously about them, they become fodder for jokes and ridicule.

What better example is...

When Maria Shriver was a young college graduate, she was an intern at Philadelphia's KYW TV news station. On occasion she would call me for background information on stories she was working on. Two words to describe her: competent and lovely. At this time, she was a very close friend...

There is hope for all of us when people and organizations view actions for what they really are, and do not offer support or aid based primarily on skin color, culture, ethnicity or sex.

Such hope is being illustrated by a bittersweet saga now unfolding in my hometown, Philadelphia.

The extraordinarily well-acted film "Blue Valentine" is being promoted as a film showing the eventual death of young marital love. Its cynical message: Marital love cannot last. This is underscored by two heartbreaking renditions of the Ink Spots' "You Always Hurt the One You Love."

Nothing is further from the...

Ending a relationship due to lack of stimulation and desire is not neat and easy, especially when children are involved.

If you are the one who ends the relationship, and you are a decent human being, there will be pangs of guilt. Such as the 33 year old guy,...

So much hoopla in the Sixty Minutes temper department! Have you followed it? On January 9th, Lesley Stahl interviewed the soon to be Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania (my home state) about the relationship between gambling and addiction. Her message was clear: Casinos promote addiction. Rendell has supported casinos in Pennsylvania....

Many find the following impossible to believe: According to Jewish law only a husband, and never a wife, can "give" a Get, or Jewish divorce. Although a Jewish woman can delay the process of a divorce, she must eventually acquiesce if her husband wishes one.

A vindictive husband, however,...

Emotional health challenges on college campuses today are overwhelming.

A recent study by the American College Counseling Association concludes that most students visit campus counseling centers with universal post-adolescent difficulties, such as devastation following a romantic breakup, academic pressure, confusion and difficulty defining their futures.

However, 44 percent...

Elizabeth Edwards will be ever remembered as a woman who offered hope to the suffering, as well as one who stood up valiantly for economic well being and protection for those denied these rights. She was fierce, brilliant, and authentic in her reasoning and her pleas on their behalf. Even...

It has not been proven exactly who leaked volumes of confidential US diplomatic material from the State Department to WikiLeaks, which was then picked up by major newspapers world wide. But to call the printing and distribution of this material reckless is a vast understatement.

While a disgruntled employee...