Locker Room Language

If you’ve been following the NFL Miami Dolphins controversy at all, you know that what happens in the locker room and usually stays there has now been splashed everywhere. And…

1986: Utopia?

I recently heard a story about a family in Canada who are living like it’s 1986. They have given up all forms of technology that were not invented before that…

Possible Cure for AIDS?

If you say, “That’s like finding a cure for AIDS,” it means that something’s next to impossible. Like cancer, HIV/AIDS is something no one wants to hear after a test. Though…

Women Get a New Disorder

There aren’t many certainties these days. Change happens overnight, and there’s little we can predict anymore. Like, will the government shut down again in a few months, or will politicians…

Anxiety Culture

We’re an anxious lot. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 40 million Americans ages 18 or older have an anxiety disorder. Ask anyone you know what’s worrying…

The slum pope

For a long time the Roman Catholic Church has seemed, to me, quite austere and removed from daily realities; its age-old traditions and white-clothed specter of a pope have often felt more symbolic than tangible.

Pay it forward

What if you didn’t have to take out a loan to get through college? In fact, what if you didn’t have to worry about paying at all the whole time you were studying?

Will we pay attention?

The trial of Trayvon Martin is over. Yes, I meant Trayvon Martin, not George Zimmerman. When you think of murder trials, you rarely think of the victims as being on trial. They’re the victims, after all. They’re the ones who lost their lives. They are not here to speak for themselves anymore. They are usually painted with the most sorrowful of colors, their lives mourned and their memories safeguarded. Funny how different this trial was.

Embracing the shake

Phil Hansen was in art school when he developed a tremor in his hand. That would surely be troubling for most of us, but as long as we could still hold a beer can successfully we’d probably be OK. For Hansen, it was the potential end of a career; his dreams of pursuing art—the one thing he was passionate about—came to halt even as his hand never did.