Over the weekend I read the following two news items: U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is practically alone on the job, working night and day to cope with the worst economic downturn in decades. Barack Obama’s offhand approach to Gordon Brown’s Washington visit last week came abo...

Plato advises us to always be kind, “for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.� It is easy to forget this advice; it is easy to assume that others should have known better or that they should have made a better choice than they did. Consider the heartbreaking story of Tom and Betty West r...

In late April, an extraordinary event happened in a women’s softball game between Central Washington and Western Oregon Universities. In the second inning of the game, Sara Tucholsky, an outfielder for Western Oregon, smashed a ball over the center field fence for her very first career home run. I...