The Blind Boys of Alabama, a five-time-Grammy-award-winning gospel group, has performed for three administrations at the White House and for enthusiastic audiences all over the world. I recently heard an NPR interview with Ricky McKinnie, a singer and drummer

How do you celebrate the holiday season at the conclusion of a year that included not one, not two, not three, but four trips to emergency rooms? Well, if you’re my friend Cindy Simmons, you take those family mishaps

Several years ago, nutritionist Jerry Sternin came up with a way to reduce malnutrition in Vietnam. And he did it with one simple question. Sternin searched out a few villagers whose children seemed better nourished than other Vietnamese kids

In the film You Can Count on Me, Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo play grown siblings who were orphaned as children. At one point, they’re talking outdoors at night, and a moth flutters into the frame. (If you look

Nick Saban and his University of Alabama teams have won four national championships, and he once appeared on a Forbes magazine cover as “The Most Powerful Coach in Sports.” A couple of months ago, I attended an Alabama practice

When Christa Quarles became OpenTable’s CEO last year, she quickly realized her teams were trying to perfect ideas and projects before showing them to her. “They would waste a ton of time trying to get it perfect,” she told

In the film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Butch and Sundance land their first honest job as payroll guards for a mining company. One classic — and funny — scene has them heading down the mountain to pick up

Americans Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick — two of the world’s fastest skaters 10 years ago —  were both scheduled for the 1500-meter speed skating event in the 2006 Winter Olympics. For weeks before the match, they bickered in

“I’m in no shape to exercise.” Overhearing this sentence in a coffee shop, I glanced over to see an obese fellow holding a gooey pastry and a drink topped with whipped cream. He and his buddy laughed, but there

Several years ago, I joined a small group visiting the set of Saturday Night Live after its Friday night rehearsal. During the visit, executive producer Lorne Michaels discussed SNL’s creative process — emphasizing that the show’s extraordinarily tight schedule