Through all of history mankind has ingested psychedelic substances. Those substances exist to put you in touch with spirits beyond yourself, with the creator, with the creative impulse of the planet.
For centuries, the Yangtze River - the longest in Asia - has played an important role in China's history, culture, and economy. The Yangtze is as quintessentially Chinese as the Nile is Egyptian or the Rhine is German. Many businesses use its name.
It wasn't simply that Clinton created the greatest prosperity in the country's history. Or that we created 22 million new jobs, more than ever before. Under Clinton, poverty was reduced 25%.
A history of perceived humiliation, after all, lurks behind many acts of terror. And competing narratives of victimhood and insults sustain conflicts in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and many other regions.
I hated the lost colony; in second grade, we were doing American History, and they said, We don't know what happened to them. That drove me nuts. That lost colony drove me crazy.
Clinton passed his first budget without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate. Before it led to the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, it led to a Democratic defeat in the 1994 midterms.
I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
When I'm not writing or tweaking my computer, I do embroidery. When I'm not plunging into the past, tweaking, or embroidering, I'm reading books about history, computers, or embroidery.
Death is the one predator we can't escape. But vampires have found the loophole so many of us crave. I think that's the allure of vampirism.
The new Zune may not be an iPod killer, but it does offer a clean interface, great industrial design, HD radio, and a subscription model for music, making it significantly less expensive for big users.
I think an old style of addressing environmental problems is ebbing, but the rise of the so-called conservative, political movement in this country is not a trend towards the future but a reaction to this very broad shift that we are undergoing.
As a result of America's efforts to realize the ideals of equality and freedom, blacks in America are now the freest and richest black people anywhere on the face of the earth including all of the nations that are ruled by blacks.
Pope Francis is not only changing the face of the Catholic Church, he's challenging us to be the face of God in the world by seeing the face of God in the person we least expect to see it, including the person in the mirror.
It's an appeal as old as America and its presidency: This is an extraordinary country populated by hard-working, big-dreaming, freedom-loving people graced by God when they're not pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.
GPS works great. I recommend it for all cat owners who want to know what their cats do when they're not there, if you can stand the ridicule from your friends.
Teaching is a great complement to writing. It's very social and gets you out of your own head. It's also very optimistic. It renews itself every year - it's a renewable resource.
They say great themes make great novels. but what these young writers don't understand is that there is no greater theme than men and women.
Especially in the world of fantasy and superheroes, it's great to have role models that aren't in skimpy little outfits, in impossible poses. That's so important for young women.
The lives of most authors - even, or perhaps especially, the great ones - are necessarily a catalogue of tedious inwardness and cloistered composition. Globe-trotting Hemingways and brawling Christopher Marlowes are the exception, not the rule.
Soccer is a great game, and the rich variety of styles and passions that come with being truly global makes the World Cup a nonpareil event in the universe of competitive sport.
