As Thanksgiving draws near I think about short Italians, about hunger and about two oddly memorable meals.

BOSTON — It was one of those small shocks that come unexpectedly in the wake of a death. Just days after the country had buried Ted Kennedy, Cardinal Sean O’Malley took to his blog to defend himself from critics attacking him for presiding over the funeral of a pro-choice senator.

WASHINGTON – While the House Democrats spent the week congratulating themselves for squeezing out the midnight passage of their version of health care reform, neutral observers were reminding them: You’ve left the job half done.

A sampling from the Web: “Why are these Muslim invaders allowed to carry on freely in this country ... protected by outreach, Obama, and PC mental illness?” “Simply put, most Muslims in non-Islamic countries have an evil axe to grind and a scurrilous hidden agenda.” “Muslims should be deported from this country! They offer nothing to Americans!”

WASHINGTON – One of the few incontrovertible assertions one can reasonably make is that no one supports forced abortion.

WASHINGTON – There’s a difference between sensitivity and stupidity. If there were indeed signs that Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood mass murderer, was becoming radicalized in his opposition to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army had a duty to act – before he did.

We don’t know why Faleh Hassan Almaleki came to this country in the mid-’90s, and it’s unlikely he’ll be able to tell us anytime soon. He’s in jail in Maricopa County, Ariz., at this writing, in lieu of a $5 million cash bond. It hardly seems far-fetched, however, to suppose he emigrated from his native Iraq for the same reason immigrants typically seek these shores: America promises opportunity and freedom.

Hopefully, kids learn positive lessons from the adults in their life as they grow up. I know I sure did. Mother’s were simple: “Always be kind.” “Never judge a book by its cover.” “Stand up to bullies.” “Don’t eat yellow snow.” And of course, “Never name-call.”

WASHINGTON — The so-called “newsroom brawl” between an editor and a writer at The Washington Post recently has been a fine distraction for the health-care-weary.

WASHINGTON – Intelligent people agree that, absent immediate radical action regarding global warming, the human race is sunk. That is a tautology because those who do not agree are, definitionally, unintelligent. Britain’s intelligent Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives scary precision to the word “immediate.” By his reckoning, humanity now has about 30 days to save itself. He says that unless a decisive agreement is reached at the 192-nation summit on climate change that opens Dec. 7 in Copenhagen, all is lost.

BOSTON – It’s been 11 years since I looked through a photo album smuggled out of Afghanistan by a brave young woman. “This is a doctor,” she said, pointing to one picture. “This is a teacher.” It was impossible to tell one woman from another under the burqas enforced by their Taliban rulers.

These days, the only thing that keeps me from being just like Dick Tracy is that his wireless telephone was on his wrist and mine is on my belt.

The election was two days away, and pollsters were calling it a deadlock between two candidates clearly representing the nation’s left and right wings. Security concerns topped the voters’ priorities. Then that night, 36 hours before the dawn of election day, assailants threw several firebombs into a packed passenger bus traveling on a regular route from city to city, killing a mother and her three young children. Terrible pictures and condemnatory commentary filled the media for the next 24 hours, carrying the anger forward to election morning – just as the attackers had planned.

WASHINGTON — Each time another report surfaces about the decline of newspapers, I feel like a death row inmate counting the warden’s footsteps.

WASHINGTON — A year after Barack Obama’s election stirred broad hopes for change among American voters, persistent high unemployment and the spectacle of continued gridlock in Washington threaten Democratic dominance of the political landscape.