Jail sentences have many functions, but one is surely to send a message about what our society abhors and what it values. This week, the equation was twofold: female infidelity twice as bad as male abuse, the life of a woman half as valuable as that of a man. The killing of the woman taken in adultery has a long history and survives today in many cultures. One of those is our own.

If we really feel like we're comfortable in our own skins now, we have a longer period of time to live out that kind of third or fourth act of our life.

The victim mentality may be the last uncomplicated thing about life in America.

The pursuit of otherness, the sense that we are somehow different than our brothers and sisters, no matter where we find them, allows for all the other great evils: racism, sexism, homophobia, violence against gay people and against women.

I do think that people who are now in their sixties and their seventies are living a different kind of life than their grandparents led, even in these tough times. A lot of them are more active, a lot of them are still working, which was not the case when our grandparents were in their sixties.

In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.