When I was growing up, yearning with my pals to be a track star, one of our heroes was Bruce Jenner. He won a gold medal at the 1976 Olympics in the decathlon, and he adorned our Wheaties boxes. We all wanted to be Bruce Jenner.

Sex and gender are such befuddling mysteries even for those of us who are in the mainstream that you'd think we'd be wary of being judgmental. Yet much of society clings to a view that gender is completely binary, when, in fact, there's overwhelming evidence of a continuum.

Neither Western donor countries like the U.S. nor poor recipients like Cameroon care much about Africans who are poor, rural and female.

The conflict in Darfur could escalate to where we're seeing 100,000 victims per month.

I remember when my first child was born, and I had a script that was due, and I asked the guy I was writing it for, a guy who I'm now friends with but at the time was not friend with, 'Can I have some extra time? I had a kid born.' He's like, 'No, we need it now.'

Home is - or should be - a place for companionship, for rearing children and having friends and family over for meals while the dog begs for scraps under the table.

I think what 'Shameless' does well is highlight real relationships. And in any real relationship, there are ups and downs and elements that change the dynamics of the relationship.

I bow down in memory of the victims, and I come to tell my Armenian friends that we will never forget the tragedies that your people has endured.