The snow that overwhelmed the Washington area yesterday has left behind great beauty as well as an indicator of what is essentially wrong with American society. I know that's a lot to pin on a weather event, but I believe it's true. Let me preface this by saying few people...

At this holiday season, even one in which money is tight for most of us, many Americans are generous in giving to those in greatest need. Donations to homeless shelters, the Salvation Army and food pantries pick up during a time when many of us are decorating our own homes...

Fame is a powerful lure. As Americans, most of us are comfortable with elevating those who achieve it through talent, determination or even kismet. For those who are famous, the rewards are sweet: power, money, status, adoration and recognition. Some claim they are uncomfortable with the trappings: Behold major movie...

When President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee explained that he "has created a new climate in international politics...Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts." While many Americans were proud that our president won the award based on...

At nine o'clock tonight, in the state where I've lived and played and loved for 18 years, a man will be executed. His name has always been inconsequential here. He is the Sniper. For a month in my daughter's tenth year, he terrorized us. It's hard to believe it all...

Bill Clinton, why don't you call anymore? How about you Governor Tim Kaine? It's election day in Virginia and the silence is deafening. For over two months, I have been bothered morning through evening by a ringing phone. Sometimes it was a live person asking who I was planning to...

A teacher, a lawyer and a writer walk into a bar and start talking about their health insurance coverage. Not the beginning of a joke, but the happy reality of life in the fall of 2009. A topic that for so long was just not discussed has been propelled into...

Remember privacy? I do. I was raised in the '60s and '70s when it was taken to the limit. I had no idea how much money my parents earned or what my friends did after school unless I was with them or called them on the phone.

People went...

It wasn't until my daughter started driving in the spring that I became aware of how sloppy we drivers have become. Many parents my age, driving minivans or SUVs, are chatting on the phone while hauling their brood around town. Way too large a percentage of drivers don't use their...

At dinner last night, my parents announced they are going to take a trip to Antarctica. Not your usual vacation destination, but it's been done. The twist is that my parents are 80 and 78 respectively, not an age at which most people choose to hike through Patagonia or look...

I had the oddest experience this morning. I had agreed to be on the Laura Ingraham Radio Show with my 16 year old daughter to talk about using an image consultant to help my daughter find her fashion style. If you're a loyal Huffington Post reader, chances are good that...

Lockerbie, Scotland was my Brigadoon. A dear friend from Wales and I were driving north to Edinburgh when we encountered heavy fog. As she was doing all the driving, I was quick to agree when she suggested we stop in the next town we came across to spend the night...

It was easy to be vital and an integral part of the fabric of American society during the good times. Middle-class, middle-aged women (and sometimes men) spent easy cash on face-lifts, fast cars to salve their aging egos, second homes and exotic vacations. They were viewed with envy by many...

I'm not the superstitious type. I've never avoided black cats, have walked under numerous ladders, don't even mind being seated in row 13 in theaters and airplanes. But I confess that I dread August 4 each year. Bad things have happened in my life on August 4 -- two cataclysmic...

Those damn "birthers" -- they sure know where to stick the knife! Hopefully by now they've figured out that Hawaii is part of the US, and may soon even realize that New Mexico is also a part of the Union. But their cowardly insinuations that President Obama was born outside...

The call came around 7 p.m. on a languid July evening as I was settling in with a good book and a big glass of iced tea. My teenage daughter was at a sleepover and the Friday evening stretched ahead quiet and uneventful. And then an Arlington County, Virginia social...

Let's get this out of the way: I'm Jewish. Not particularly observant, can't speak Hebrew or Yiddish, but I can make a mean brisket and I've always been proud to identify as Jewish. Having grown up in some homogeneous places like Newfoundland, Canada and Wiesbaden, Germany, I am not unfamiliar...

If, like me, you grew up in the 1960s and 70s, the soundtrack of your life included the Jackson Five and Charlie's Angels was must-see TV. So today is a sad day for a generation -- even for those who found Michael Jackson's lifestyle distasteful and Farrah Fawcett bland. They...

Like many Americans, I have long had an uneasy sense of the death penalty in this country. In order to fully support it, you have to have complete faith in our justice system and in the value of deterrence. Recently the latter has been strongly challenged: A new study shows...

I had an abortion in 1975 when I was a college sophomore. I've never told anyone in my adult life - not my parents, my friends and lovers, my siblings or my teenage daughter. I didn't tell my colleagues in the 1990s when I was working at Planned Parenthood, nor...