Write letters to your editors, write to your members of Congress, and write to your news stations.

There are other issues I have felt more emotionally connected to, like China, where I lived and worked for some time. I was living there when Tiananmen Square erupted

The bulk of the emails tend to come after a column. I can get about 2,000 after a column.

It really is quite remarkable that Darfur has become a household name. I am gratified that's the case.

Random violence is incredibly infectious

The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible. If we knew as much about Darfur as we do about Michael Jackson, we might be able to stop these things from continuing.

We, as Americans, have won the lottery of life and the distinction between us and people living in Kalighat is not that we are smarter, not that we're harder working, not that we're more virtuous - it's that we're luckier.