When "The Colbert Report" premiered five years ago this week, we didn't quite know what to make of it. Sure, "The Word" segment, in which Stephen Colbert introduced the semi-neologism "truthiness," ...

My sister, Bea, was 35 years old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and 38 years old when she died in 1993. She left behind a husband, two toddlers and, innocently, a genetic legacy that our ...