This is a reflective time of year for me. My father, Ronald Reagan, died in June 2004, and each year I let myself drift into whatever realm my thoughts and memories lead me to. Sometimes…

Recently, close to 600 leaders from across the country — representing some of the nation’s largest grant makers, community foundations, and grassroots groups — gathered in Seattle. They joined forces to strategize on how to…

The most moving scene in Homer is not the death of the great heroes, Patroclus or Hector, but the tail-wagging of a pet dog, Argos. After 20 years away, 10 fighting the Trojans and 10…

Early in the 20th century, childbirth in America looked very different than what you’ll find in most labor and delivery wards today.  Many hospital births involved “twilight sleep,” a cocktail of drugs that rendered a…

Trillions, as in trillions of dollars, are being bandied about in the way millions were, then billions. But take a look at 1 trillion expressed numerically: 1,000,000,000,000. Awesome, isn’t it? Twelve zeros. The national debt…

As America prepares to celebrate 250 years of kicking butt and taking names, I’m celebrating something that we aren’t kicking: soccer balls. Our victory over the Brits did more than guarantee life, liberty and the…

The World Cup is coming to America. For many observers, that represents soccer’s arrival in the United States. I think it represents something else: the culmination of a transformation that has been underway for half…

Walking up Madison Avenue during January’s polar vortex, I turned the corner onto 39th Street and hit a line of puffy coats, tote bags and young people with wired headphones. I had no idea what…

President Trump is retreating from the proposal to set up a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund as a settlement of his lawsuit against his Internal Revenue Service. “We’re not moving forward with the fund. Period,” acting…

My 92-year-old father spent most of the weekend trying to load a very heavy piece of equipment onto his trailer to take it away for scrap. His tractor just wasn’t doing the job. I was…