Easter is meant to be a symbol of hope, renewal, and new life.

In a very straightforward way, I am a terrible reporter. I'm not someone who can go into a story and not get involved.

Sibling rivalry was, and still is to this day, rampant in my family. We were all competing for my parents' divided attention.

Lake Como has always been a magnet for the elite.

Sarajevo was this beautiful city, very cosmopolitan, multiethnic, full of wonderful people, artists and writers and poets and Serbs and Muslims and Croats, and living side by side. And then this medieval siege, and it was a medieval siege, came, and the Bosnian Serbs were on the hills lobbing in rockets and grenades and mortars.

In the aftermath of any war or genocide, healing and reconciliation are ultimate aspirations.

Stockholm is surely an urban planner's dream. Everything works. Everything looks good.

There is a painful joke that Europeans often tell of their Gallic neighbors: God created France, the most beautiful country in the world with so much good in it, and ended up feeling guilty about it. He had to do something to make it fair. And so, he created the French people.

When you're in the closet, you feel like the sky will fall down if anyone finds out. A lot of the fear is self-generated.

After coming out as gay, I soon felt a lot more comfortable in my life, moment to moment.

What's it like to figure out you're gay and then begin the process of coming out? Well, for most of my life, I felt doomed. I could imagine no path that would allow me to realize my authentic self. I felt the need to lie, even to myself, insisting: I am straight.

What does homophobia look like when it's stripped bare of fancy costumes like family values and tradition? It looks like that group of strange, angry people who protest at the funerals of U.S. soldiers who've died fighting for our country.

I think I would love to have dinner with Gandhi; Jesus Christ; Mother Theresa; Ingrid Newkirk, the president of PETA; and Madonna.

There's no guilt in eating fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains.

Unfortunately, addicts don't respond to reason or rationality.

I am what I want. What I seek to consume, possess, and achieve is a mirror that reflects my lusts and cravings, values and priorities, and moral boundaries or lack thereof.

If parents don't instruct their kids on the narrow boundaries of respectful behavior toward the opposite sex, their kids won't learn it anywhere else.

Today, it seems almost everyone knows a friend or relative who is gay.

Every decision we make - when we choose a vehicle, when we pump gas into that vehicle, when we order food - is not just a personal lifestyle choice. It's an environmental and moral choice.

The natural world is not indestructible.

Unfortunately, fur is still flying off the racks. It's a billion dollar industry.

The raccoons, foxes, beavers, chinchillas, minks, rabbits, and yes, sometimes even dogs and cats that are killed for fur are not very different from your beloved dog or cat. They all have eyes, ears and hearts. They all experience pain when they are physically maimed. They shake with fear when they experience terror.

Using animals for entertainment is big business, plain and simple.

The killer whale Tilikum has helped SeaWorld sell millions of dollars worth of tickets.