We believe that marriage, by its very definition, can exist only between a man and a woman. Moreover, study after study - not to mention common sense - show that children fare better in life when raised in a home with a loving father and mother in a ...
So once I thought of the villain with a sense of humor, I began to think of a name and the name "the Joker" immediately came to mind. There was the association with the Joker in the deck of cards, and I probably yelled literally, 'Eureka!' because I ...
I am a curious creature and put my finger in as many cakes as I can: history, film, technology, etc. I'm also a freak for urban history, particularly Barcelona, Paris and New York. I know more weird stuff about 19th-century Manhattan than is probably...
I didn't think it sounded so much different than anyone else's voice until I got to the broadcasting school, and I raised my hand to ask a question of the school president, and he said, 'See me after class.' And the rest is history.
One of the greatest live recordings, I think, in the history of the world is Ray Charles in Atlanta... And they didn't even have a big mobile recording thing set up. The word on the street was they only had like two microphones, one for the band and ...
Economists should be modest and be aware that they are part of the broader social science community. We need to be pragmatic about the methods we use. When we need to do history, we should do history. When we need to study political science, we shoul...
I like it to be quiet, and it usually occurs in the morning. There are three or four places in my house where I can write and I like to keep moving around. The moment I find myself falling into a necessary routine, I change it. I'd rather not accumul...
Children are extremely perceptive and absorb what goes on around them long before they can talk or even comprehend language. They are like finely tuned receivers that pick up much more than is merely said. They are receptive and attuned to every mood...
Technology has moved away from sharing and toward ownership. This suits software and hardware companies just fine: They create new, bloated programs that require more disk space and processing power. We buy bigger, faster computers, which then requir...
My sense of injustice about our family's 'weirdness' in not owning a car was amplified by the fact that we did not own a television, either - my parents were unapologetic about this and told me very cheerfully that I would thank them for it when I wa...
I'm starting to think about things that I want to do, things that are fun. One of them is driving a car like a Porsche. I've driven a lot of cars - sedans, trucks and big family vehicles all year long. But there's nothing like a four-wheel-drive Pors...
Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, lives in a mansion that uses more electricity than the average family's bungalow! David Suzuki rides on a bus that uses more fuel than a Smart car to get across Canada! Oh my God! And this is j...
I used to sleep in the T-shirt I wore during the day and whatever ratty old gym shorts I could find on the floor. But one year for Christmas, someone gave me a very chic, comfortable pair of pajamas from Brooks Brothers, and I realized the error of m...
I just think that it's strong and it's important that we recognize what the Christmas season is about; it's about the birth of our Savior, and there's a lot of pressure today to be politically correct, but people are realizing, too, that you have to ...
My wife's brother has a little house on a small island in the Baltic Sea, and we go there at Christmas. The 30-minute crossing from the mainland to this island is the most terrifying cruise you'll ever take. They give you a barf bag when you walk on ...
When I was really young, I loved the movie 'White Christmas' - I still do - and I thought Rosemary Clooney was so pretty. When I was, like, nine, I would tell people, 'You know who I kind of look like? Rosemary Clooney.'
One of the joys of being a Christian or being a person of faith is that you believe deep down that death isn't the worst thing, you know. Not living your life: that's the worst thing. And death is not, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's not, it...
Social media reactions to celebrity death have taken on a predictable pattern: an outpouring of shock with expressions of grief, followed by a ghoulish need to know all the details, to see the scene of the death and the family in mourning. Then a pos...
I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal d...
And we should keep our minds open, or at least ajar, to concepts on the fringe of science fiction. Flaky American futurologists aren't always wrong. They remind us that a superintelligent machine is the last instrument that humans may ever design - t...
A large number of students around the world don't really have access to high quality education. So, launching EdX allows students all over the world to have much better access to a high quality education from a university such as Harvard, MIT, Berkel...