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

The photos were taken by African Union soldiers. People in Congress saw them. I thought if people could see them, there would be public outcry. No one would be able to say, We just didn't know what was going on there.

Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs. The barbaric civil war being waged here is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake.

America's education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.

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 tide of history is turning women from beasts of burden and sexual playthings into full-fledged human beings.

I think it's dangerous to be optimistic. Things could go terribly wrong virtually overnight