In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.

For most of history, genocide was just something governments did and nobody blinked.

Look, we'll have to confront the pathologies of poverty at some point. We can deal with them cheaply at the front end, in infancy. Or we can wait and jail a troubled adolescent at the tail end. To some extent, we face a choice between investing in preschools or in prisons.

I think it's dangerous to be optimistic.

The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible.

It's easy to keep issuing blame to Republicans or the president

Usually people are very much focused on keeping their kids alive.