My cousin gave me a handmade card for one of my childhood birthdays. It wasn’t just any handmade card: it was made on thick, glossy paper, complete with baubles and expensive, elegant stickers. If I remember correctly, that was her only gift to me that year. But that didn’t matter: I treasured the card, often
READ MOREWhen I hear the phrase “book ban,” the image that comes to mind is something straight out of “Fahrenheit 451” – books torn from private residences, doused in kerosene, and thrown onto a blazing funeral pyre of intellectual tradition, removing all certainty that such works ever existed. Yet when American media uses the phrase “book
READ MOREEveryone wants to be happy. As Aristotle explains in “The Nicomachean Ethics,” happiness is the thing we desire for its own sake. We don’t pursue happiness as a means to some other good; it appears to be the final end people pursue in life. The other things we aim at – wealth, pleasure, relationships –
READ MOREOnce upon a time, December was filled with Christmas pageants and programs, many of which took place in the local school auditorium. At the very least, such programs were filled with Christmas carols spelling out the story of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem; many of them – like the one depicted in the 1941 film, “Penny Serenade” –
READ MOREThis Thanksgiving, 36 members of my family – my children and grandchildren, a nephew and his wife, and an in-law still raw from the recent death of her husband – gathered in the kitchen and dining room of my daughter’s house. Following the mealtime blessing, we took turns expressing what we were thankful for, from
READ MOREWhen most people hear that my siblings and I graduated high school years ahead of normal, scored high on state-standardized tests, and attended top colleges and universities, they generally assume our schooling was extremely strict, long, and arduous. Our schooling was challenging, but it was never impossible. In fact, I realized only years later how
READ MOREChain, chain, chain (Chain, chain, chain) Chain of fools So ran the chorus to Aretha Franklin’s 1967 hit song “Chain of Fools.” One hundred twenty years earlier, the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels proclaimed: “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” The chains of Franklin’s song
READ MOREA friend of mine recently relayed the story of how her daughter asked why she couldn’t get her ears pierced like her older sister. “Well, she’s more responsible,” was the gist of my friend’s reply to her daughter, “and when you learn to be more responsible, you can get yours pierced too.” Lo and behold,
READ MOREOne of the most frustrating signals of something wrong is always the price of a gallon of milk. I ran into our local grocery store last night to buy two gallons for $3. I remember back when that price was only $1.50. It’s not my imagination, either. According to this resource, monthly grocery costs have risen
READ MORE