Inequality causes problems by creating fissures in societies, leaving those at the bottom feeling marginalized or disenfranchised.
The Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine, is in northwestern India near the Pakistani border, and it is a delightful place to contemplate the draw of faith.
The wilderness is healing, a therapy for the soul.
We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We're in a relay race, relying on the financial and human capital of our parents and grandparents. Blacks were shackled for the early part of that relay race, and although many of the fetters have come off, whites have developed a huge lead.
Our world is enriched when coders and marketers dazzle us with smartphones and tablets, but, by themselves, they are just slabs. It is the music, essays, entertainment and provocations that they access, spawned by the humanities, that animate them - and us.
Just a little help, a small security force, a bit of food, can save lives.
I've always been interested in public health approaches because it seems to me we have this yearning for silver bullets, and that is not in fact how change comes about. Change comes through silver buckshot - a lot of little things that achieve results. That's a classic public health approach.
Beware of generalizations about any faith because they sometimes amount to the religious equivalent of racial profiling. Hinduism contained both Gandhi and the fanatic who assassinated him.
Why are fanatics so terrified of girls' education? Because there's no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn't drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.
A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.
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.
Most of the villagers were hiding in the bush, where they were dying from bad water, malaria and malnutrition.
Sure, food stamps are occasionally misused, but anyone familiar with business knows that the abuse of food subsidies is far greater in the corporate suite. Every time an executive wines and dines a hot date on the corporate dime, the average taxpayer helps foot the bill.
I'm sometimes embarrassed by how clinical I can become when I'm out reporting.
Numeracy isn't a sign of geekiness, but a basic requirement for intelligent discussions of public policy.
You no more have the right to risk others by failing to vaccinate than you do by sending your child to school with a hunting knife. Vaccination isn't a private choice but a civic obligation.
The north of the Central African Republic is now a war zone, with rival armed bands burning villages, kidnapping children, robbing travelers and killing people with impunity.
What use could the humanities be in a digital age? University students focusing on the humanities may end up, at least in their parents' nightmares, as dog-walkers for those majoring in computer science. But, for me, the humanities are not only relevant but also give us a toolbox to think seriously about ourselves and the world.
A few countries like Sri Lanka and Honduras have led the way in slashing maternal mortality.
Worrying about bills, food, or other problems leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax.
