Women aren't the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity.

I think when hundreds of thousands of lives are on the line, you might have to set aside some principles.

Most of the villagers were hiding in the bush, where they were dying from bad water, malaria and malnutrition

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 fact that people will pay you to talk to people and travel to interesting places and write about what intrigues you, I am just amazed by that.

American airstrikes...create risks, especially if our intelligence there is rusty. The crucial step, and the one we should apply diplomatic pressure to try to achieve, is for Maliki to step back and share power with Sunnis while accepting decentralization of government. If Maliki does all that, it may still be possible to save Iraq. Without that, airstrikes would be a further waste in a land in which we've already squandered far, far too much.

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.