Most writers seem to prefer the morning, or they feel at their best in the morning. Ideas are popping into your head while you're in the shower. And that's true for me, as well.

Where there's smoke, there's bound to be mirrors.

I try to take people one at a time, with all the contradictions and compromises that most of us live with.

When you're young, you don't feel iconoclastic - you're just kind of doing what seems natural, what moves you.

At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious.

I don't think so, but it's always in the back of my mind that many of the soldiers being wounded and killed in Iraq are about the same age as my kids. My godson is going over soon, so the war's about to get personal for me.

In any event, it's not exactly a secret to regular readers what my views on the war are