Prosecutors insist they are mounting a "thorough investigation," which sometimes means thorough and sometimes, historically, has meant long enough to let the fire burn down in an incendiary case. A thorough investigation is fine; an interminable one is disgraceful.

We've made hyper motherhood a measure of female success.

And a great misunderstanding is that children think their parents are grown-up, and parents feel obliged to act as if they were.

The unemployment rate among the young in the United States is still very disconcerting, although we all know it's nowhere near as bad as it is in some of the European countries, where in some places it approaches 50 percent.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

Adolescence is a tough time for parent and child alike. It is a time between: between childhood and maturity, between parental protection and personal responsibility, between life stage- managed by grown-ups and life privately held.

It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the pale new growth on an evergreen, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the colour of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking.