Overcoming the Cold War required courage from the people of Central and Eastern Europe and what was then the German Democratic Republic but it also required the steadfastness of Western partner over many decades when many had long lost hope of integration of the two Germanys and Europe.
The central conservative truth is that it is culture not politics that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.
When I'm in town on Sundays I sometimes go down to the Central Bar in the East Village to watch English football. But my natural inclination now is to get in the car with my wife and kids and get out of town.
The automobile both a cause and an effect of this decentralization is ideally suited for our vast landscape and our generally confused and contrary commuting patterns.
Married couples who work together to build and maintain a business assume broad responsibilities. Not only is their work important to our local and national economies but their success is central to the well-being of their families.
Environmentalism opposes reckless innovation and makes conservation the central order of business.
Central banks don't have divine wisdom. They try to do the best analysis they can and must be prepared to stand or fall by the quality of that analysis.
Gardening is not trivial. If you believe that it is closely examine why you feel that way. You may discover that this attitude has been forced upon you by mass media and the crass culture it creates and maintains. The fact is gardening is just the opposite - it is or should be a central basic expression of human life.
What you have now is a Hollywood that is pure poison. Hollywood was a central place in the history of art in the 20th century: it was human idealism preserved. And then like any great place it collapsed and it collapsed into the most awful machinery in the world.
The greatest advances of civilization whether in architecture or painting in science and literature in industry or agriculture have never come from centralized government.
I run from Horatio Street down just past Battery Park City and back. It's amazing to run and see the Statue of Liberty and the ferries coming in. People think if you're not near Central Park there's nowhere to go but there's a whole ecosystem happening down here.
Time in general has always been a central obsession of mine - what it does to people how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally I am interested in old age.