Every once in a while, a book so possesses me that I happily give up a couple of consecutive nights of sleep - as well as the evening news broadcasts and latenight talk shows - to finish it. That's what happened when I opened the novel 'Shadow Tag' by Louise Erdrich.

Someone asked why I invited Jon Stewart to be the first guest on the 'Journal''s premiere in 2007. 'Because Mark Twain isn't available,' I answered. I was serious.

At a time when the cost of health care is skyrocketing, the potential economic impact of mind/body medicine is considerable.

Today, the practice of medicine in an urban, technological society rarely provides either the time or the environment to encourage a doctor-patient relationship that promotes healing.

When my brother died in 1966, my father began a grieving process that lasted almost twenty-five years. For all that time, he suffered from chronic, debilitating headaches. I took him to some of the country's major medical facilities, but no one could cure him of his pain.

You only have to glance at the daily news to see how passions are stirred by claims of exclusive loyalty to one’s own kin, one’s own clan, one’s own country, and one’s own church. These ties that bind are vital to our communities and our lives, but they can also be twisted into a noose.

People who don’t believe in government are likely to defile government.

There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians – they stay bought.

In uniform patriotism can salute one flag only, embrace but the first circle of life-one’s own land and tribe. In war that is necessary, in peace it is not enough.

You can’t have a people’s democracy as long as corporations are considered people.