The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various 'individuals', or groups of 'individuals', experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their "pursuit of happiness" to outright obliterating it.

From her gospel-singing mother Cissy Houston, her legendary pop-diva cousin Dionne Warwick, and her Queen of Soul godmother Aretha Franklin, she [Whitney Houston] inherited gifts for skillfully interpreting lyrics and endowing them with new depth and jeweled nuance.

The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.

This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.

Literary genres and techniques tend to take form in one's mind somewhat the way computer templates provide form for different computer tasks.

Writing for me is a form of spiritual discipline and creative vision, a means of being in the world and giving one's love to it without compromise or dilution.

All the world loves a ghost. The evidence of that simple statement can be found by looking in nearly every direction.