In June of 2008, researchers from the Tohoku University School of Medicine in Tokyo warned, in a report re-published by the CDC, well before the masked and panic-laden Spring Break of 2009 images from Mexico City emerged, that mortality rates from a future pandemic would likely be higher in...

Barack Obama, welcome home. Now, please stay home. We need your undivided attention, and brilliance. We need your ability to connect with the American people. We need your wisdom to elevate the parochial concerns of lawmakers facing re-election next year, to craft something many American presidents have tried to do,...

As the economy continues to unwind with frightening speed, I think about the paradox of excess and deprivation and consider those who appear to have much when others, too many others, have so little.

And I wonder if only now, our new president may be able to bring us together,...

Only two times in the century leading up to 2004, did the betting markets get American elections wrong. Here's what the bookies in England and Ireland are betting on now:

Sarah Palin may be off the ticket as John McCain's running mate soon. The day before her 17-year old daughter's...

You know Democrats are worried about Senator Obama's chances when post-mortems begin on the first day of the Democratic Convention. Joan Walsh of Salon.com, on MSNBC's Morning Joe program on Monday, August 25, shared with viewers that if Mr. Obama loses it's not because he's black. Newsflash: It's because he...

What if Democratic voters and the uncommitted superdelegates come to learn that Rush Limbaugh had a greater impact on Hillary Clinton's victory in Pennsylvania, and maybe Texas and Ohio, than say, the Reverend Wright, and the so-called 'bitter' comments? Would such a finding influence how voters view the Pennsylvania 'victory?'

Candidates for public office understand that most American families are juggling incompatible career and family obligations, largely on their own. Not as widely debated is the connection between low voter turn-out and the intolerable burdens placed upon our voters in the middle. In the middle between rich and poor, between...

Anyone who has ever taken on the task of persuading another person to consider another point of view must decide whether to incorporate humor into her presentation.

We've all sat through the safe lecture in college that was intended to offend no one, and succeeded. More to the...

John Edwards' full head of hair is looking good to me. And, I must admit that I like the way Barack grins when he's addressing an adoring crowd. And did you see the gracious way in which Al Gore handled himself at the Oscars? Not a misplaced sigh all night,...

Maybe it's a boomer thing. Those of us in the right age demographic, who grew up on Vonnegut and Ken Kesey, seem to have an inbred sense of 'normal radar,' when we feel like inmates in an asylum whose jailers are seriously psychotic, yet unfailingly polite.

You ever feel...

I know I'm going out on a limb here. But go with me even if half the population declares that I've failed the p.c. test for professional women Democratic strategists. I'm wondering if our lawmakers and the American people are suffering from some sort of collective "Battered Women's Syndrome or...

I see a dismal future for the Democratic Party notwithstanding our victories on November 7th. Why? Our penchant for marginalizing our truth-tellers surely deserves an honorable mention. Winning "Miss Congeniality" in the contest for self-sabotage is our practice of castigating those among us who dare to set high expectations....