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  • What an Old Sears Roebuck Catalogue Teaches Us About Gun Control

    What an Old Sears Roebuck Catalogue Teaches Us About Gun Control1

    As I write these words, a reproduction of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, published in 1968 by Chelsea House, sits at my elbow. The fat catalog is a casual reader’s delight and a historian’s treasure trove. Here are medicines like laudanum, herb tea, and castor oil. Here are tools, bobsleds, gasoline stoves, windmills, bicycles, clothing

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  • Quiz: How Strong is Your Thriftiness Quotient?

    Quiz: How Strong is Your Thriftiness Quotient?0

    Ben Franklin knew a lot about—preached and practiced —  thrift. So how do you go about measuring thrift or any individual‘s thriftiness quotient? I get asked this question all the time, so I devised this handy Thrift Meter. Try it and pass it along. Is there an Index or some gauge that can give you a reliable account

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  • Minimum Wage Hike to $15 Wipes Out Jobs in Illinois and New York

    Minimum Wage Hike to $15 Wipes Out Jobs in Illinois and New York0

    Big minimum wage hikes wipe out a lot of jobs. Illinois recently enacted a $15 minimum wage, a large increase in the minimum wage that will be phased in over several years. And businesses are already announcing plans to close up, move out of the state, or curb their expansion in the state. The Daily Gazette

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  • Arresting Homebirth Midwives Just Reduces Women’s Birth Choices

    Arresting Homebirth Midwives Just Reduces Women’s Birth Choices0

    After being arrested and charged with practicing midwifery without a license last fall, a midwife in upstate New York is wondering whether or not she will go to jail for the work she has done for decades. Elizabeth Catlin is a beloved certified professional midwife (CPM) who has caught hundreds of babies in the tight-knit

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  • Sorry, Marie Kondo. Most People Have Too Little Stuff.

    Sorry, Marie Kondo. Most People Have Too Little Stuff.0

    Marie Kondo’s Netflix show “Tidying Up” is a hit. Apparently, Americans love watching other people throw stuff into trash bags – saying “thank you” to each item first, per the KonMari method. In each episode, Kondo cheerfully sweeps into a new family’s home like a Japanese Mary Poppins and teaches them how to declutter their

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  • Schools Renormalize Raising Adults

    Schools Renormalize Raising Adults0

    Many of us are old enough to remember how childhood used to be. Our afternoons were spent outside playing with the neighborhood kids—no adults or cell phones in sight. Sometimes we got hurt, with occasional scraped knees or hurt egos, but we worked it out. We always knew we could go home. We had paper

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