I have a daughter who is a sophomore in college and another who is in the 11th grade of high school.

Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.

It's easy to kind of say it's the elite that's putting you down. Well, it wasn't really the elite, technology will do that.

Until we fully understand what turned two brothers who allegedly perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings into murderers, it is hard to make any policy recommendation other than this: We need to redouble our efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young men....And the best place to start is with a carbon tax.

I am hoping, though, that many of them have kids, who, when they have a moment to take a break from their iPods, Internet, or Google, will explain to their parents running the country just how the world is being flattened.

I said that more people in more places can now compete, connect and collaborate with equal power and equal tools than ever before.