When the first pictures of Hurricane Katrina flashed on television in 2005, media used “refugee” to describe those displaced residents.

When you get to college, no one ever asks, "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Instead, you're repeatedly crank called by a cynic who says, "When you grow up, and reality sucker punches you; you'll see the world for what it really is."

Is free speech a human right?

Google says no.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says yes.

Once upon a Jim Crow time, a black woman and white man fell in love, married, and pleaded guilty to violating state miscegenation law.

The Lovings were convicted by a judge who wrote, “Almighty God … did not intend for the races to mix.”

Are Darfuris and Tibetans not human?

At least 200,000 are thought to have died and more than 2.5 million more are believed to have fled their homes in the face of atrocities and the destruction of villages in the Darfur region of oil-rich Sudan.

Bring your own bag or pay a fee.

If a new bill passes, California will require retailers to charge 15 cents for one-time use plastic shopping bags.

"I have never seen anything that would resemble this crime, with the brutality and the manner they did it,” police Lt. Chuck Reed said.

"No matter how sincere an apology is, when said over and over, it’s easy to become desensitized to words," Sergeant/E-5 Jason Miles of East Palo Alto, Calif. said.

Miles, now 23, graduated from Basic Training on Jan. 31, 2004, and was in Iraq by March of that same year.

His afternoon routine is no different than yours or mine. He gets off work, enjoys a few puffs from a hand-rolled cigarette and a bit of sunshine in the backyard before dinner. Every week, Ed’s sister (and caregiver) takes him back to her nearby home, where he has his own room. He plays with his niece, and they have dinner together as a family.