Medical debts are the number-one cause of bankruptcy in America..

The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world f….

Heads of state are notoriously ill prepared for their mature careers; think of Adolf Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Minh (seaman), and our own Ro….

For the millions of us who live glued to computer keyboards at work and TV monitors at home, food may be more than entertainment. It may be the only ….

For anyone worn down, The Impossible Will Take a Little While is a bracing double cappuccino..

If men were equally at risk from this condition - if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that the….

A child is not a salmon mousse. A child is a temporarily disabled and stunted version of a larger person, whom you will someday know. Your job is to ….

To live in poverty is to live with constant uncertainty, to accept galling indignities, and to expect harassment by the police, welfare officials and….

The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society..

War cannot be used as a means to prevent or abolish wars. ... The idea of a war to prevent war is one of its oldest, and cruelest, tricks..

There's more pressure on women to be chirpy and perky..

I grew up hearing over and over, to the point of tedium, that "hard work" was the secret of success: "Work hard and you'll get ahead" or "It's hard w….

Imagine spending four billion years stocking the oceans with seafood, filling the ground with fossil fuels, and drilling the bees in honey production….

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots..

So why do people keep on watching? The answer, by now, should be perfectly obvious: we love television because television brings us a world in which ….

Given the cultural barriers to intersex conversation, the amazing thing is that we would even expect women and men to have anything to say to each ot….

Whether you work outside the home or not, never tell them [your children] that being a mommy is your 'job.' Being a mommy is a relationship, not a pr….

By the Reagan era, the 'culture of poverty' had become a cornerstone of conservative ideology: poverty was caused not by low wages or a lack of jobs ….

Roman Catholicism: a hundred million people bowing down before a flesh-hating, elderly celibate..

Consider the standard two-person married couple. ... They will share a VCR, a microwave, etc. This is not a matter of ideology or even personal incli….

Well I do think there are people who are habitually negative and depressed and take the opposite approach because they imagine the worst, and their m….