Conservatism cherishes tradition; innovation fetishizes novelty. They tug in different directions, the one toward the past, the other toward the future.

Throughout the nineteen-seventies and eighties, especially during periods of recession, employees were moved from offices to cubicles.

Theories of history used to be supernatural: the divine ruled time; the hand of God, a special providence, lay behind the fall of each sparrow. If the present differed from the past, it was usually worse: supernatural theories of history tend to involve decline, a fall from grace, the loss of God's favor, corruption.

History's written from what can be found; what isn't saved is lost, sunken and rotted, eaten by earth.

Ishmael Beah was born and spent his childhood in Sierra Leone as that sad but beautiful West African country was ravaged by a civil war that left some 50,000 dead between 1991 and 2002. He was a child soldier for a while, then, through extraordinary circumstances, was set free of that life.

After 'A Perfect Storm' came out, I heard from a young reader, who had suffered a similar background as 'Arizona,' that I had helped her to find peace. That was the most amazing thing in the world to me.

The scientific and technological discoveries that have made war so infinitely more terrible for us are part of the same process that has knit us all so much more closely together.

I am proud to represent the first explicitly feminist government in the world, and one that has been at the forefront of advocating for greater attention to women, peace, and security.