We continue to blame the poor for their own condition. They are lazy. We do not want to know that the poorest of the poor are toddlers under three years of age.

Working moms, and increasingly working dads, don't want a government handout, but they do need a hand up.

When there is violence against any person in society, because he or she is different, it threatens us all. Only by speaking out are any of us safe.

Legislative proposals that would enable an employer to determine whether or not a woman's insurance would cover the cost of birth control strikes women as particularly bizarre. Is the boss going to take care of the children that are conceived accidentally? Stop treating us like children. Women are grown ups.

If we are to create a new agenda for family/work policies, employers and employees have to take a seat at the same table and recognize their mutual gains.

To equate a corporation with a person is a travesty of justice.

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.