Are there really good wars and bad wars? We thought so during World War II, and in retrospect, we were right. But in Vietnam, and Iraq we were wrong.

There are not many female role models to guide voters, and the tradition that a Southern woman's place is in the home still lingers in some quarters.

I confess to feeling continued ambivalence about political life, aware of its shortcomings and disappointments, but drawn back to it again and again because of its infinite promise. Justice can triumph, wrongs can be righted, and pain can be alleviated, if the right fix is found. The optimistic illusion that one can change the world is difficult to resist, especially when from time to time that illusion is sustained by even a hint of reality. Change does happen in the political process.

Women in leadership cannot cry without raising a storm of commentary.

It is the future, of course, which politicians grapple with, and that is why politics is so disorderly. Only history clears away some of the debris.

If months were marked by colors, November in New England would be colored gray.

Video games seem to be mostly a boy thing - viewed by young boys and created by big boys. I believe that if more videos games were created by women, the violence in these games - especially against women - would be rapidly toned down.