I've always thought the Right-wing were ones that were inflexible and intolerant,and now I'm coming to realize that the orthodoxy at NPR, it's representing the Left.

In 2008, Obama won 56 percent of the women's vote to John McCain's 43 percent. It was the critical difference in the race.

The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.

NPR editors and journalists found themselves caught in a game of trying to please a leadership team who did not want to hear stories on the air about conservatives, the poor, or anyone who didn't fit their profitable design of NPR as the official voice of college-educated, white, liberal-leaning, upper-income America.

I was always a performer kid - like, annoyingly so. I would put on shows for my family and direct my friends in little plays, and my little sister, I'd make up dances with her. But when I was 12, that was when I started taking it seriously, and my mom for some reason believed in me and helped me find an agent in Cleveland, which did nothing for me.

New York has an amazing history of farming and fishing that goes right back to the Pilgrim Fathers. At its core are the four seasons, which are distinct, well-established and similar to those in Lyon, where my family lives: when it's snowing in New York, a week later it will be snowing there.

Coming from a family of preachers, the idea of giving back has been part of my life as long as I can remember.

I've got two older sisters who I'm very close to. And my son's grown up with a big sense of family around him.