Television has the obvious benefits of regularity and intimacy.

Television offers a range and scope, and a degree of creativity and daring, that the bottom-line, global-audience-obsessed, brand-driven movie industry just can't compete with.

Financial institutions like to call what they do trading. Let's be honest. It's not trading; it's betting.

Only institutions that go about the old-fashioned business of taking in deposits from customer A and lending them out to customer B should be called banks. The rest should call themselves what they are. 'Parlors' would be appropriate, or 'dens' - words more suitable to venerable betting pursuits.

Let's face it, who among us wouldn't take a pill or potion that would make us better at our job? Goodness knows, we abuse substances for just about everything in our personal lives; why not in our professional lives as well?

Where past generations had film cameras, scrapbooks, notebooks, and that part of the brain which stores memories, we now have a smartphone app for every conceivable recording need.

In the Digital Age, recorders also tend to be oversharers, and with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, they can do so on a grand scale.

I always thought eating what you wanted was one of those aspects of adulthood to be looked forward to when you were a child.

Those who remember New York in the 1970s, as I do, look back on a city that had hit a very rough patch - decaying, bankrupt, and crime-ridden. But fun.

Magazine stories, the best ones anyway, are generally a combination of three elements: access, narrative, and disclosure.

Many of the architects of the Vietnam War became near pariahs as they spent the remainder of their lives in the futile quest to explain away their decisions at the time.

The danger of leaving overwhelming wealth and power in the grasp of a small minority is a lesson that leaders such as ousted Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have learned a little too late, as the demonstrations across the Arab world indicate.

In America, the top 1 percent led the country into war and economic devastation, leaving the less fortunate to fight for one and pay for both.

As a father of five, I sometimes feel I've spent a lifetime watching Disney musicals.

Issues such as transparency often boil down to which side of - pick a number - 40 you're on. Under 40, and transparency is generally considered a good thing for society. Over 40, and one generally chooses privacy over transparency. On every side of this issue, hypocrisy abounds.

'The Guardian,' with its deep journalistic traditions, is careful about context and explanation. It sees itself as a gatekeeper, and it worries about consequences.

What do you call an electorate that seems prone to acting out irrationally, is full of inchoate rage, and is constantly throwing fits and tantrums? You call it teenaged.

History is nothing if not an epic tale of missed opportunities.

Conservatives define themselves more by their hatred of liberals than anything else, and, conversely, liberals by their distaste for conservatives.

It's no surprise that the Bush administration's bullying swagger and blithe ignorance have caused much of the Muslim world to hold the U.S. in rock-bottom regard.

It could fairly be said that the U.S. is increasingly out of step with the rest of the world. As our neighbors to the south elect left-wing or even socialist governments, we are lurching further to the right. As Europe becomes less engaged to the Church, we are becoming more fundamentalist.

'Green' does not have to mean the sort of hair-shirt, wood-burning-stove sensibility of the '70s. Green can and should be sleek and modern.

Former vice president Al Gore has devoted his post-administration years to a mission to tell the world about global warming. It's funny, but in his civilian life Gore has discovered the voice that voters had trouble hearing when he ran for president in 2000. The voice he has found is clear, impassioned, and moving.

I don't think you can be a credible, modern candidate for president without making the environment a major part of your platform.

In 2004, I wrote 'What We've Lost,' a book about the Bush administration. It sold only reasonably well, in part, I think, because the book was a horrific downer, an unrelenting account of the administration's actions, bungles, deceptions, half-truths, untruths, and downright corruptions.

It could fairly be said that America, during the Bush years, has entered an Age of Denial - arguably the first stage of a nation's decline.

Water-boarding can result in damage to the lungs and the brain, as well as long-term psychological trauma.

To a young kid growing up in Canada, America seemed to be crazy about the future; dazzled by it.

After the collapse of Wall Street in the 1920s, the culture stopped being all about money, and the country survived and ultimately flourished.

In this age of 24-7 headlines, the term 'newsweekly' seems almost quaint.

Branding experts believe that just because they have rethought a company's image or name, the rest of us will automatically fall in line.

Everything I love about America is fragile.

Every minute you invest in kids you get back four times over.

Stationery is addictive. I get mine made in Paris at Benetton, and writing on it gives me a strange thrill.

As you get older and fatter, good clothes can hide a lot.

Hatred for Obama... has more to do with race than anything else.

My suggestion to newspapers everywhere is to give the public a reason to read them again. So here's an idea: get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences.

I actually don't know how magazines are produced, I'll be honest with you. I have no idea.

War is a form of really bad manners, in a strange way. Invading a country I think is just the worst possible manners. 'You're not invited!' Gate crashing on a large scale!

You have to give kids something to rebel against. You can't like their music - you have to call it noise. It's incumbent on a parent.

To discuss a Martin Amis book, you must first discuss the orchestrated release of a Martin Amis book. In London, which rightly prides itself on the vibrancy of its literary cottage industry, Amis is the Steve Jobs of book promoters, and his product rollouts are as carefully managed as anything Apple dreams up.