December is the month of shopping. There are right — and wrong — ways to do this ... The young father’s voice is audible to everyone near him. He’s intently teaching his toddler son, maybe two years old, how to act in a store. He’s drilling down on the elements of “stranger ...

I have been recently trying to understand why some drivers approaching four-way stops seem to feel that if they allow another driver to pass through the intersection first, their entire day’s schedule will be messed up–not to mention that in some cases, their wife may file for divorce for ...

Of all the head-scratching ideas our political leaders have rolled out over the years, this one is practically guaranteed to make the history books. I’m referring to the 50-by-the-year mortgage, an idea shot out like confetti from a cannon pointed in the wrong direction by our current ...

In the theater of geopolitics, few performances have been as strange — and as consequential — as the ongoing pas de deux between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. What should be a sober negotiation to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II has instead taken on the ...

I usually associate construction work with being annoyed. But, during this season of goodwill, I find myself thinking of it with a surprising amount of tolerance and even nostalgia. I suppose it’s on my mind because there has been so much of it so close to me this year.  The most ...

When I was growing up in the 1990s, people would accuse someone of being gay, intending it as an insult. That left the person accused of being gay in a hard position. If they denied it, they were ceding the point that being gay was defamatory. An episode of “Seinfeld” mocked the problem, ...