To me, body and mind are different aspects of specific biological processes.

Rather than being a luxury, emotions are a very intelligent way of driving an organism toward certain outcomes.

Some of us, for better or worse, develop very stable, consistent, and largely predictable machineries of self. But in others, the self machinery is more flexible and more open to unexpected turns.

Imagine, for example, birds. When they look out at the world, they have a sense that they are alive. If they are in pain, they can do something about it. If they have hunger or thirst, they can satisfy that. It's this basic feeling that there is life ticking away inside of you.

Upon the farm of the uncle with whom I lived, we did know of the mortgage as some dreadful damper on youthful hopes of things that could not be bought. I do have a vivid recollection that the major purpose of a farm was to produce a living right on the spot for the family.

If the American people - pro-choice and pro-life - cannot agree with the basic concept that the life of a baby born alive following a botched abortion should be protected, then when do the rights of these babies begin?

There is an imagined thing called black culture. But culture is a construction. It is learned behavior, not innate. The black American experience is the American experience.

We all grow up. Hopefully, we get wiser. Age brings wisdom, and fatherhood changes one's life completely.