International Women's Day was observed this week by the mighty and the lowly around the world. One signifincant group of women were missing from the celebration, according to a new UN Development Program study.

The worst nightmare of racists and nativists is that nonwhites will "outbreed" the “the real Americans,” meaning whites. Actually that’s happening already, and the cross-over date when the minorities of today – black, Asian, Hispanic -- will be the majority and the whites the minority is no further off than the middle of the 21st century.

Should health care reform pass, it seems, from what some are saying, that pregnant women across the country will be running out to get abortions. It will be as if abortion became legal all over again!

Each day of Lent (minus Sundays) we'll bring you words of wisdom from spiritual guides. 20. Fyodor M. Dostoevsky: Choose to love Christ said, "Go and give all you have to the poor and become the servant of all," for if you do that, you'll become a thousand times richer because your happiness won't be made just of good food, rich clothes, satisfied vanity, and appeased envy.

If there is one thing European bishops should have learned from U.S. sex abuse crisis, it's don't blame the messenger.

Each day of Lent (minus Sundays) we'll bring you words of wisdom from spiritual guides. 19. Edwina Gateley: Contemplative prayer When I was a small girl, I was fascinated by all things religious and holy. God, obviously, fitted squarely into that category.

When I first heard about the Confessional phone line on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me's "Bluff the Listener" game, I thought that it had to be true. "Bluff the Listener" is a segment on the NPR news quiz where each panel tells a ridiculous story, only one of which is true.

Each day of Lent (minus Sundays) we'll bring you words of wisdom from spiritual guides. 18. Mohandas Gandhi: Fasting and the voice of God Fasting for the sake of unfoldment of the spirit is a discipline I hold to be absolutely necessary at some stage or other in the evolution of an individual.