Choose your words meticulously and then let them rumble up from some deep furnace of conviction.

Once they arrive, affirmative action kids are generally left to sink or swim academically. Brown (University) offers plenty of counseling and tutoring to struggling students, but, as any academic Dean will tell you, it's up to the students to seek it out, something that a drowning minority student will seek to avoid at all costs, fearing it will trumpet a second-class status.

The idea that our son would be like Raymond Babbitt was a shocking reordering of everything. And something we couldn't quite fathom, really.

Rapid change, accommodating it can be one of the great human capacities. But living through it can be the stuff of stress and often suffering.

Message matters. Message matters almost as much as actions.

The substance of faith is a hope in the unseen.

The President [Barack Obama] is very focused on [healthcare]. He, of course, is also writing this speech at high speed. And right coming up until the speech, he is convinced that a full plan, letter and verse of what the administration wants, will be released.