We're all better off...when we're all better off.

To be sure, the United States has profound problems, not least our faltering educational and physical infrastructure.

We tend to think of politics as bad, full of dirty tricks, negative ads, big campaigns, but I am here to explore the original meaning of politics, which is positive and has to do with balancing competing interests and looking for solutions.

Today's multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they'd like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white.

True patriots measure themselves not by personal wealth or power but by the degree to which they contribute to the community.

There have been, in recent years, many Asian American pioneers in the public eye who've defied the condescendingly complimentary 'model minority' stereotype: actors like Lucy Liu, artists like Maya Lin, moguls like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. They are known, often admired.

We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something measurable and concrete like an SAT score. The reality, though, is that who deserves entry into an institution depends on what the institution exists to do.