In my experience (I am the lone father of an eight-year-old boy who lost his mother when he was one year old), parenting is the most difficult of all jobs: forget your chief executives, editors, prime ministers and the like - parenting is far more ch...
The reason why China forecasting has such a poor track record is that Westerners constantly invoke the model and experience of the West to explain China, and it is a false prophet. Until we start trying to understand China on its own terms, rather th...
As a privileged survivor of the First World War, I hope I may be allowed to interject here a deeply felt tribute to those who were not fortunate enough to succeed, but who shared the signal honor of trying to the last to salvage peace.
You know, it's very clear, as one looks back on history again of the Cold War that, following the crisis in Cuba, following the Khrushchev - beating down of Jack Kennedy in Vienna, that President Kennedy believed that we had to join the battle for th...
Part of the problem is voters know relatively little about Romney. And some of what they know about him complicates his task: Romney has a history of flip-flopping on issues, he's extraordinarily wealthy, and he can be tone-deaf about what moves vote...
I don't have much experience, but the few times when I would go on a date with a girl - like when I was 12 - there was a lot of sharing, and a lot of talking, and a lot of asking how I am. They thought we were dating, and I was sort of hoping to meet...
I think we have to keep working enormously hard to see that every single Indigenous child - every Australian child - has true equality of opportunity. We've got to work harder at it. I think, you know, the heartland issue for us is the gap; the gap i...
George W. Bush was good as his word. He visited the Gulf states 17 times; went 13 times to New Orleans. Laura Bush made 24 trips. Bush saw that $126 billion in aid was sent to the Gulf's residents, as some members of his own party in Congress balked.
I need to add that my work on multiple intelligences received a huge boost in 1995 when Daniel Goleman published his book on emotional intelligence. I am often confused with Dan. Initially, though Dan and I are longtime friends, this confusion irrita...
As with companions so with books. We may choose those which will make us better, more intelligent, more appreciative of the good and the beautiful in the world, or we may choose the trashy, the vulgar, the obscene, which will make us feel as though w...
It could be that all awful dictators are frustrated artists - Mao with his poetry and Mussolini with his monuments. Stalin was once a journalistic hack, and I can personally testify to how frustrated they are. Pol Pot left a very edgy photo collectio...
In many ways, 'What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World' is just one big thank-you note to my teachers. The book is dedicated to my fifth and sixth grade English teacher, Dr. Joseph D'Angelo, a massive force of erudition, martia...
And, you know, I watched him in Texas where he stood on his principle but he also reached out to members of the other party to try to work with them, to try to forge agreement where he could in keeping with his conservative principles to make Texas a...
But she had known, better than anyone else, what demons he had faced, had known how hard he had fought to free himself from them. That he had lost the fight in the end made the struggle no less honorable.
Shattered by the cumulative effect of so much horror and death, Joan was again afflicted by a crisis of faith. How could a good and benevolent God let such a thing happen? How could He so terribly afflict even children and babies, who were not guilty...
Some social scientists say that in-group/out-group biases are hard-wired into the human brain. Even without overt prejudice, it is cognitively convenient for people to sort items into categories and respond based on what is usually associated with th...
My religious beliefs teach me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death. I do not concern myself with that, but to be always ready whenever it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and all men would be eq...
I grew up writing thank-you notes. Real, honest-to-goodness, pen-and-ink, stamped and posted letters. More than simple habit, it's about what the commitment to expressing your thoughts and feelings in writing says about the character of the writer. A...
We should always remember that it is by His invitation that we come to His holy house, the temple of the Lord. We should respond to His invitation by being worthy, by being prepared, and by having the temple as a priority in our lives. While in the t...
The 'looking forward' so prevalent in the late 1990s was bound to end once the new millennium began. Like some others of that era, I predicted a new focus on the moment, on real experience, and on what things are actually worth right now. Then 9/11 m...
I find it easy to dress other women, but when it comes to myself, I find it very difficult. I used to have no particular interest in clothes. Now I enjoy it more and pay much more care and attention. But I do get it wrong lots of times, and I'm like ...
