It's a glorious universe the positive thinkers have come up with, a vast, shimmering aurora borealis in which desires mingle freely with their realiz….

Labor is like motherhood to most of our political leaders: a calling so fine and noble that it would be sullied by talk of vulgar, mundane things lik….

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather..

the fastest-growing brand of religion is of the magical 'name it and claim it' variety, in which the deity exists only to meet one's immediate, self-….

What would it mean in practice to eliminate all the 'negative people' from one's life [as demanded by motivational speaker J.P. Maroney]? It might be….

Call it 'nationalism' when you affix a flag to your car, and leave the word 'patriotism' for your efforts to make this country a kinder, more egalita….

Both chronic, long-term poverty and downward mobility from the middle class are in the same category of things that America likes not to think about..

Personally, I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don't happen to think it's a….

I realize that after decades of positive thinking the notion of realism, of things as they are, may seem a little quaint. ... When the stakes are hig….

There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage..

Middle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be benefici….

Experimental science is fascinating, but I don't want to do it. I want other people to do it, and I'll read about it..

Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money..

We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and sub….

There seems to be no stopping drug frenzy once it takes hold of a nation. What starts with an innocuous HUGS, NOT DRUGS bumper sticker soon leads to ….

a great deal of the wealth at the top is built on the low-wage labor of the poor. Take Wal-Mart, our largest private employer and premiere exploiter ….

People tend to judge presidents on how the economy performs, and yet we don't expect them to have the power to do much about it. Or we don't want the….

In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritu….

Well, the first thing that clued me in to the fact that there was something really scary about breast cancer, way beyond the thought of dying, was co….

the seeker who embraces positive theology finds ... that you can have all that stuff in the mall, as well as the beautiful house and car, if only you….

At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we lea….