America traditionally represents the greatest possibility of someone's going from nothing to something. Why? In theory, if not practice, the government stays out of the way and lets individuals take risks and reap rewards or accept the consequences of failure. We call this capitalism - or, at least, we used to.

The formula for achieving middle-class success is simple: Finish high school; don't have a child before the age of 20; and get married before having the child.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Raising a child is an on-the-job kind of thing. There arent a whole lot of manuals for that.

The war on drugs is wrong, both tactically and morally. It assumes that people are too stupid, too reckless, and too irresponsible to decide whether and under what conditions to consume drugs. The war on drugs is morally bankrupt.

Whatever happened to Warren Buffett, the world's their-richest man? Guilt, a feeling of being blessed by luck, forgotten lessons - who knows? In any case, Buffett now believe that government should redistribute the wealth earned by others to those who did not earn it.

Raised by an irresponsible mother during the Great Depression in the Jim Crow south, my father was on his own from the age of 13.