My father, whose storytelling made me want to be a writer, listens to stories these days because he can no longer tell them. He is very sick.

In Denver, the Clintons have left the building. Finally. Bill Clinton did his bit for Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, just as Hillary had done her bit the night before. And now, at long last, they are getting off the stage so Obama can get on.

Two weeks ago, my family and I took an abbreviated summer vacation. My twin teenage sons were looking for adventure. As the director of Interfaith Worker Justice, a national faith-based organization addressing problems faced by workers in low-wage jobs, I was looking to get away from workplace problems. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

The Internet provides vast amounts of information but it can also spread vast amounts of misinformation, or even deliberately misleading disinformation.

The Olympics have concluded to acclaim for China's global leadership role, to celebration of China's winning the most gold medals, and to new reports that China has extended its global lead in greenhouse gas emissions.

Somewhere in the afterlife, Walter Annenberg must be shaking his head and wondering what in the world is going on in Chicago. First, the Sun-Times and the Tribune gave up precious inches of their dwindling news space to report that the University of Illinois at Chicago was refusing — and then later agreed — to release documents detailing Sen. Barack Obama’s role in a nonprofit education project "started" by William Ayers, a founder in the 1960s of the radical Weatherman group, which embraced violence as an anti-war tactic.

The selection of Sen. Joseph Biden as Barack Obama's running mate underscores, once again, the challenges faced by these candidates among evangelical Christians and Catholics. In the case of Obama, the concern is that his faith is not the sort of Christianity that most evangelicals or Catholics would profess. Far from solving this problem, the selection of Biden brings to the ticket a man at odds with the highest levels of his own Catholic faith.

In 1985, when New York raised its alcohol purchase age to 21 under federal pressure, I was a sophomore at Cornell. One day, I was responsible enough to order a beer; the next day, I wasn't.

One night we went to dinner, and when we came down the driveway on our return, it was apparent that the power had gone out. Not a light on anywhere: not by the front door, over the kitchen sink, not even that faint ectoplasmic shimmer we've all learned to recognize as the television screen. At the dining-room table the kids were playing a board game by the light of a Coleman lantern, eating the ice cream they had unselfishly rescued from the out-of-commission freezer. The scene had a nice old-fashioned feel: "Little House on the Big Electrical Grid." Or, for a few hours, off it.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs recently issued a report documenting a sharp rise in hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Many of the victims are teenagers. How can we awaken America to the need to combat this violence? A part of the answer was recently made clear to me in a New York restaurant, along with a renewed understanding of the importance of electing Barack Obama our next president.

Barack Obama is dropping a little in the polls, and John McCain is rising a little in the polls, which is to say the race for president is now a toss-up.

What is happening in the republic of Georgia is all too reminiscent of what happened back in 1956, when Russian tanks rolled into Hungary -- and the West did nothing.

It's funny how little we hear about "drug reimportation" these days.

I was one of the alleged 3 billion people watching the opening ceremony Friday night of the Beijing Olympics on TV, and I think I received the intended message: China is here, big time. The scope, precision and beauty of the production were, you will agree, astonishing. The distinguished film director Zhang Yimou was given $300 million and full reign of his imagination, and perhaps some of his background in opera was also useful.

We have forgotten so much about the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that many people may not remember the deadly anthrax spores that were mailed to various prominent people in politics and in the media during that time.