David Bromwich

Professor of Literature at Yale

Is America at war with Islam? The question began to be asked when the first evidence emerged of the transfer of hundreds of innocent Muslims to Guantanamo and the despotic new order that permitted indefinite detention of suspects.

Jamie Lee Curtis

Actress and children's book author

Jason Collins changed the world forever when he told the truth. Jason Collins told the NBA, the players and fans that he was a gay man. It is the moment of truth that the world has been waiting for.

Ben Affleck

Academy Award-winning producer and writer

As a nation we both claim a noble position in the world and assert a reputation for fostering freedom, human rights and fairness here and abroad. If indeed we are to live up to that, we cannot abide having some among us who starve.

Arianna Huffington

Our culture is obsessed with time. This is our real deficit crisis, and one that, unlike the more commonly discussed deficit, is actually getting worse. In fact, researchers have given this crisis a name: "time famine."

Mark Cuban

Owner, Dallas Mavericks; Chairman, AXS TV

Billions of dollars are being invested to make trading without humans faster, cheaper, smarter. The problem is that no matter how smart you make machines, they will never be smart enough in our lifetime to detect all levels of deceit and fraud. Particularly online.

Margaret Cho

Comedian, actor and recording artist

I got in Twitter fights for outing someone. But if public figures came out of the closet, then the LGBT kids who saw them on TV would feel safe, before they even knew why they felt dangerous. Maybe if enough people came out of the closet, gay kids would never feel dangerous.

Chris Kluwe

NFL player, Minnesota Vikings

Why do I speak out in support of the gay community? Because the words, "We should round them all up and send them to an island to die," are absolutely abhorrent to any rational-minded person and should never be uttered by one member of the human race about another.

Marian Wright Edelman

President, Children's Defense Fund

Anyone despairing that Congress can't get anything done should note last week's swift vote to get furloughed air traffic controllers back to work. Congress can move very quickly and efficiently when it wants to and when their own comfort and that of constituents well-off enough to fly was affected.

Ted Danson and Andrew Sharpless

In the ocean you find a symphony of sound, from the clicking of snapping shrimp to the long mournful wails of whales, and zips of dolphins. Now imagine this oceanic soundscape shattered by dynamite-like blasts, every 10 seconds for days and even weeks on end.

Melinda Gates

Co-chair, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Empowered, mobilized communities don't just address one single issue, such as female genital cutting; they work steadily to recognize and then meet all their needs.

Doug Bandow

Senior Fellow, the Cato Institute

Washington's foreign policy should be one of peace. Today the U.S. is without peer. Terrorism is the most serious security threat facing the country, but it is only exacerbated by promiscuous intervention in conflicts not America's own.

Marlo Thomas

Award-winning actress, author and activist

Before Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot -- throughout history and in almost every culture -- disguising one's gender has been a common plotline in folklore, literature and theater.

Jared Bernstein

Fmr. Obama administration economist; CNBC and MSNBC contributor

Payrolls increased by 165,000 last month and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.5 percent, in a jobs report that painted a considerably brighter picture than last month's version.

Elizabeth Drew

Journalist

The nonsense about what it takes for a president to win a victory in Congress has reached ridiculous dimensions. The fact that Barack Obama failed to win legislation to place further curbs on the purchase of guns has made people who ought to know better decide that he's not an "arm-twister."

Michelangelo Signorile

Editor-at-large, HuffPost Gay Voices

The magnitude of NBA player Jason Collins' coming out today cannot be overestimated. He breaks a barrier that we've been waiting for someone to plunge through: a major league sports player saying "I'm gay" while still playing and at the height of his career.

Lea Grover

Writer and toddler-wrangler

I know you didn't expect most of this. I know you didn't anticipate loving somebody so intensely, or loathing your post-baby body so much, or being so tired, or being the mom you've turned out to be.

Ban Ki-moon

Secretary-General, United Nations

Malaria continues to inflict a major toll on least developed countries -- primarily in Africa -- and millions of people still lack access to life-saving interventions. In Africa, malaria kills a child every minute.

Rita F. Pierson

Educational trainer, motivational speaker, author

In the spring of my career, I found myself questioning the choice of my life's work. The students did not appear to be motivated, the paperwork was overwhelming and the constant change of educational direction was discouraging. But, I just could not seem bring myself to do anything else.

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

Francine and David moved from New York City to Newtown to raise a family somewhere safe. They could never have imagined that in that quiet place on a Friday morning, just days before Christmas, gunfire would take their younger son's life.

Maude Standish

Co-Founder and Managing Director of Tarot a Millennial Trend Research Company

I'm not married yet -- that's just a few short months down the line -- but I've already made up my mind.

James Franco

Actor and author

Macbeth with Alan Cumming: another dazzling and brilliant one-person show. Yes, Macbeth as a one-man show, a portrayal of Macbeth by a man losing his mind in an institution. Cumming is superb.

Denise Henry

Writer and editor

I wipe my children's faces a certain way, I caress their knees or elbows in a certain way when they fall down and I scold them in a way that only a parent can.

Will Self

Will Self is a novelist, journalist and RAPt supporter

You don't need to have suffered from addictive illness (although it undoubtedly helps) to understand that abstinence-based recovery is the only method that really works -- in the sense of bringing the individual completely face-to-face with the underlying psychological problems that cause him or her to use drugs and alcohol in the first place.

Shelley Emling

Editor, Post 50

There's no shortage of words in the English language that are consistently mispronounced. Here are just three of them.

Jim Wallis

Christian leader for social change; Author, 'On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned About Serving the Common Good'

This week marked six months since Superstorm Sandy left entire communities devastated, families homeless, and many with little hope. But in the midst of this natural disaster, many banded together. One young filmmaker in New York, Farihah Zaman, caught that resilience and acts of service on video.

The Amazing Kreskin

With a showman's flair, a comedian's wit, and capacities of a bona fide Mentalist...

I've given a lot of thought to what I'm going to talk to you about right now given the gravity of the most recent prediction I have been preparing to reveal. These are not logical things I'm going to say, but things that I feel very, very strongly about.

Mohamed A. El-Erian

CEO and co-CIO, PIMCO

As new graduates leave college and enter the labor force, they may wish to consider the advice that I was incredibly lucky to receive from my father as a child. Be serious and disciplined in pursuing more than the what, when and why. Also be curious, and think deeply about the how.

Guy Kawasaki and Caleb Tiller

A simple summary of my life is that my parents worked very hard so that I could have a great education, and I took that education and worked very hard to get where I am. I would like my kids' lives to be exactly the same.

Susan Spencer-Wendel

Journalist

It's odd to think of my autopilot life, the one before. Working at a job I loved and navigating the daily dance of sibling warfare, homework and appointments. Then one night I looked down at my left hand. "Holy shit," I yelped. "You need to go to the doctor," John said.