Few would argue that there is not a health care crisis in America.  We now rank 29th in infant mortality, behind countries such as Cuba, Slovakia, and Hungary.   Since 2000, according to a study by the non-partisan Kaiser Foundation, the average worker contribution for a family health insurance policy has increased 107%.   Over 45 million [...]

Then, in my childhood in the dawn
Of a most stormy life was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still . . .
–Edgar Allan Poe, Alone

1. The Meaning of Things
I’ve never lost my childhood sense of mystification – my ability to be amazed by the intricate puzzles and foggy [...]

Every night for several years, you’ve hopped onto a trampoline. You’ve jumped and jumped until your heart raced, your body felt weak, and you were exhausted. It’s this ritual, you believe, that allows you to sleep, and you have slept so brilliantly during these years that closing your eyes has become, in itself, [...]

1.
I see her through the clouded lens of decades past, the tiny girl with the weary smile, and the sure, square hands darkened with charcoal and chalk. At nine, she built her world of art on sidewalks and cement walls, springing dark-eyed figures out of marigold fields, and white rabbits out of wishing wells.
She [...]

“Feminism: the radical notion that women are people.” – Anonymous
“Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” – Pat Robertson
Feminism. The word can rouse the twin specters of angst and animus out of even their most [...]