If knowledge is power, clandestine knowledge is power squared; it can be withheld, exchanged, and leveraged.

The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families.

Friendships aren't perfect and yet they are very precious. For me, not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.

Why hope to live a long life if we're only going to fill it with self-absorption, body maintenance and image repair? When we die, do we want people to exclaim 'She looked ten years younger,' or do we want them to say 'She lived a great life'?

If family violence teaches children that might makes right at home, how will we hope to cure the futile impulse to solve worldly conflicts with force?

Housework is the only activity at which men are allowed to be consistently inept because they are thought to be so competent at everything else.

Children's liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list.