Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries.

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

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

The trails are a reminder of our insignificance. We come and go, but nature is forever. It puts us in our place, underscoring that we are not lords of the universe but components of it...So when the world seems to be falling apart, when we humans seem to be creating messes everywhere we turn, maybe it's time to rejuvenate in the cathedral of the wilderness - and there, away from humanity, rediscover our own humanity.

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

More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides in six months than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

You could perhaps better tell the story of a place by writing of a tiny village as a sort of prism into the bigger issues the culture was facing. It struck me as a better way to learn about a place, or at least a different way, than just going to interview the president. So I have often tried to tell the story of a place through people there. But I'm just amazed.