Washington's answer to a self-inflicted financial crisis reminded Americans why they so deeply distrust the political class. The 'fiscal cliff' process was secretive and sloppy and the nation's so-called leadership lacked the political courage to address our root problems: joblessness and debt.

My e-mail address is actually my wife's e-mail address. I actually hate computers.

One of the things that is not so good is that a decision was made long ago about the size of an IP address - 32 bits. At the time it was a number much larger than anyone could imagine ever having that many computers but it turned out to be to small.

Art must unquestionably have a social value that is as a potential means of communication it must be addressed and in comprehensible terms to the understanding of mankind.

But despite the universality of URLs we often forget that they're not just a handy way to address network resources. They're also valuable communication tools.

Secure our borders first. Let us know and let us make sure the American people know that we're taking care of the important business of dealing with the illegal immigration into this country. You cannot begin to address the concerns of the people who are already here unless and until you have made certain that no more are coming in behind them.

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.

But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.

In addressing a task one almost always has several possible options sometimes only a few and they may all be practical and functional. But they lack the aesthetic aspect that raises it to architecture.

Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans' anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts his presidency and worse our economy will be paralyzed.

No Congress ever has seen fit to amend the Constitution to address any issue related to marriage. No Constitutional Amendment was needed to ban polygamy or bigamy nor was a Constitutional Amendment needed to set a uniform age of majority to ban child marriages.

We have become a society that can't self-correct that can't address its obvious problems that can't pull out of its nosedive. And so to our list of disasters let us add this fourth entry: we have entered an age of folly that - for all our Facebooking and the twittling tweedle-dee-tweets of the twitterati - we can't wake up from.

Today more than ever we need creative minds to address the issues of the age. And one of the most urgent is this: How can humanity know so much achieve so much and still fail so many people so badly?