Liberation is an ever shifting horizon, a total ideology that can never fulfill its promises. It has the therapeutic quality of providing emotionally charged rituals of solidarity in hatred - it is the amphetamine of its believers.

My mother was a continual source of wisdom and great advice...she taught me that there is always a way around a problem-you've just got to find it. Keep trying doors; one will eventually open. She also taught me to accept failure as part and parcel of life. It's not the opposite of success; it's an integral part of success. I talk a lot about learning to become fearless in your approach to life. But fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's the mastery of fear. It's all about getting up one more time than you fall down.

Lasting social change unfolds from inside out: from the inner to the outer being, from inner to outer realities.

In The 3rd Alternative, Stephen Covey urges us to chart a course beyond the suboptimal solutions to all our crises - beyond left and right, and beyond the many false choices in front of us. The 3rdAlternative is a wise and welcome echo of Einstein's warning that the problems we're facing today cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.

The most effective means for restoring the integrity of our electoral process, and repairing the public's tattered faith in its elected representatives, is through the full public financing of political campigns. It's the mother of all reforms: the one reform that makes all other reforms possible. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If someone's going to own the politicians, it might as well be the American people.

I've always said that I think one of the best and cheapest ways to become healthier and happier is through mindfulness exercises like meditation.

As the newspaper industry continues to contract, one of the most commonly voiced fears is that serious investigative journalism will be among the victims of the scaleback. And, indeed, many newspapers are drastically reducing their investigative teams.