Our readiness to assume guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, then it all depends on us.

The Internet hasn't wrecked the craft of writing yet. Indeed, in one sense online communication has helped revive the written word in an otherwise rampantly postprint culture.

There is an old and wise saying: The best things in life are free. Nothing epitomized that better than my dog, Lizzie. She cost nothing, but she was priceless.

How do you chase death and stay unaffected?

If you could get into a time machine (hot tub or otherwise) and travel back though the years, you'd discover that human kind has always lived with this same sense of dread . . . the feeling that any moment a wooly mammoth or a saber tooth tiger could show up and trample or decimate the tribe.

Forget the stereotypes and caricatures, today's dads are doing the job effectively and without media hype.

It says something about the exhibitionistic age we live in that a video of a politician and his mistress has emerged as a totem of privacy, an intensely personal object.

What do you think about when each thought, each memory, could be your last?

In an Egypt where passion is kept buttoned up by religiosity, Yahia Lababidi observes an all-pervading sensuality that will not be denied.

Experts say things are collapsing. Maybe they're not collapsing fast enough.

I don't care for underdogs, generally, unless the underdog is me. I like the overdog. I like the perennial winner. The one everyone is gunning for. It's lonely at the top. But well worth it.

In the last decade we've seen ever-higher orders of cloned animals, including puppies that glow thanks to implanted jellyfish DNA. Yet why is nobody excited about the idea of humans with wings?

The randy golfer shouldn't apologize--he should teach classes.

If the worst does happen and everything becomes chaos, I'm going to be at a distinct disadvantage.

Ryan Bingham, the character played with debonair finish by George Clooney in "Up in the Air," is a perfect mirror of modern business and social trends.

The surprising accuracy of the Dark Ages' trial by fire rituals.

Is it still possible to function in the 21st Century without a mobile phone?

A snow storm brought people, both friends and strangers, closer together.

The digital revolution of the 00s saw the rise of creative, collaborative communities, with information scarcity a thing of the past.

Holiday giving ritual passes from neighbor to neighbor ... if he doesn't pass out