Just this once, I wish I could write with pictures instead of words. That would make it easier to explain why the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who died Wednesday at 104, was one of my heroes.

The recent vote by America’s catholic bishops to move Dorothy Day along toward canonization was controversial, but mainly among those who manufacture controversy for a living. The media have enjoyed pointing out that Day’s main advocate, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, is a traditionalist, while Day was a socialist who once had an abortion. It must be something like a conservative president nominating a raging liberal to the Supreme Court, except with eternal tenure at stake.

A variety of insults have been deployed in opposition to Susan Rice’s likely nomination for secretary of state: She is not qualified; she’s too aggressive; she “misled” the public following the lethal attack on the American consulate in Libya.

As just about everyone knows, Republicans and Democrats are squaring off to decide whether to take the nation on a plunge over a so-called fiscal cliff – or come to a screeching halt at the rim by agreeing to sizable spending cuts and tax increases.

Young people are not exactly renowned for their judgment.

Sometimes you have to walk through the desert to get to the Promised Land. That’s the way it is for Republicans right now. The Republicans are stuck in a miserable position at the end of 2012, but, if they handle things right, they can make 2013 an excellent year – both for their revival prospects and for the country.

Put Social Security on the table – clearly and irrevocably. Protecting retiree benefits is the left’s political equivalent of the right’s “no new taxes” pledge. Congressional Republicans are abandoning their untenable position. Now it is time for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats to do the same. As long as they don’t, they aren’t bargaining in good faith, or in the national interest.

How dare he? President Barack Obama, I mean: How dare he do what he promised during the campaign? How dare he insist on a “balanced approach” to fiscal policy that includes an teensy-weensy tax increase for the rich? Oh, the humanity.

I recently sat down to look through our photo files from the past year to put together one of those holiday cards with family pictures on it. As I looked through the files, I realized how many pictures we had of our son, yet how few we had of me or my husband.

Bing Crosby would be appalled.

If you ever had any doubt that this is a nation of political hysterics, consider the fact that tens of thousands of people in each presidential election promise to leave the country if the “wrong” guy wins.

You might not have noticed that another round of U.N. climate talks is under way, this time in Doha, Qatar. You also might not have noticed that we’re barreling toward a “world ... of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions.” Here in Washington, D.C., we’re too busy to pay attention to such trifles.

As events have unfolded in what shall ever be known as “The Petraeus Affair,” one cannot escape noticing that the women in this sordid saga have been handed the short end of the shtick, as though the men are mere victims of ambitious, hormonally driven vixens.

After four hard-fought charter initiative campaigns, legislative foot-dragging, and implacable opposition from the state’s public school establishment – not just the teachers’ unions – Washington voters have approved public charter schools. Initiative 1240, which benefited from substantial funding, passed narrowly but clearly. In a peculiarly illiberal twist, this state that prides itself on innovation has rarely applied the secret sauce to education reform. I-1240 cautiously moves us forward. It’s a significant, though hardly bold, first step. The first steps are often the most important.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last week became the latest economist to ask why the current economic recovery has been so weak. The question has inspired a cottage industry of studies, papers and speeches with often-esoteric and murky theories. The explanation is actually straightforward: The financial crisis and Great Recession scared the wits out of most Americans – not just consumers but also corporate managers, bankers and small-business owners. They are reacting accordingly. They’re cautious, risk-averse and defensive. They’re spending less and saving more.