The poor of the world cannot be made rich by the redistribution of wealth. Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty, taking their money and giving it as a reward to people who have failed to escape.

Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.

You can learn all about the human condition from covering the crime beat in a big city - you don't need to go to Beirut for that - but a foreign correspondent begins to understand poverty from a different perspective.

There's a current notion that you should "take charge of your disease." No thanks. I'm busy. I've got cancer. I'm willing to face having cancer. I'm not willing to face having cancer with homework. I promised Dr. Pipas and Dr. Zaki that I wouldn't show up with sheaves of printouts from the Internet containing everything on Wikipedia on malignancies. They each laughed with detectable notes of relief. Although I suspect my wife has made her way into the health blog ether. Fish oil pills, raw kelp, and other untoward substances started showing up on dinner plates after I was diagnosed.

If we want the whole world to be rich, we need to start loving wealth. In the difference between poverty and plenty, the problem is the pverty, not the difference. Wealth is good.

One of the reporters must have flunked journalism school because he asked a question that went straight to the point.

Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty.