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Beyond Trampoline: New Summer Games To Consider
July 28, 2012 The Olympics have a long history of including some games and discarding others. In this accelerated digital age, there are a few new competitions that might be more familiar than trampoline maneuvers like the fliffus.
Blind Sportscaster Bob Greenberg Remembered
July 14, 2012 Bob Greenberg died this week at the age of 67. He was a sportscaster who happened to be blind. When I've told people he's one of the most extraordinary people I've ever worked with, there's usually polite incomprehension: A blind sportscaster?
'Mr.' And 'Ms.,' A Courtesy To Be Respected
July 7, 2012 Over the years, I've come to see good sense in my mother's advice: "If you're always slightly overdressed, you're never underdressed." If you begin with "Mr." or "Ms.," you may offend someone with sharp or silly questions, but not with discourtesy.
'Anti-Cheating Ring' Not Likely To Deter History
June 30, 2012 A wedding ring that proposes to imprint "I'M MARRIED" on a would-be philanderer's finger is sparking a lot of attention — and outrage. I'm merely skeptical.
Behind The 'Model Minority,' An American Struggle
June 23, 2012 The Pew Research Center says Asian-Americans are now the fastest-growing ethnic and immigrant group in the United States. Pew says Asian-Americans also tend to be the most educated and prosperous. But every Asian group here has a different immigration story.
Remembering Henry Hill, A Real Wiseguy
June 16, 2012 Mobster-turned-FBI informant Henry Hill died this week of cancer at the age of 69. That's kind of young, but it's quite a few years older than what you might have thought he'd make.
When A Job Interview Turns Into Psychoanalysis
June 9, 2012 Why should someone who wants a job have to confide their fears, flaws and darkest dreams to total — judgmental — strangers? A job interview is a professional encounter, after all, not psychoanalysis, a religious confession, a third date or family therapy.
Just Deserts Follow Attempted Pasty Tax
June 2, 2012 This week, the British government reversed course on a plan to place a 20 percent tax on hot foods like pasties, a humble food more associated with the layman than a posh parliamentarian. Sometimes those politicians must eat their words.
Her Husband, A Hero Lost For The Lives Of Others
May 26, 2012 This Memorial Day, Rose Mary Sabo will lay a wreath at the Vietnam War Memorial. Her husband, Leslie Sabo, died in the war 42 years ago, just a few months after she married the boy she met at a high school football game in Ellwood City, Pa., in 1967.
Teaching Kids Balance Can Be A Lesson For Parents
May 19, 2012 To be a parent is to be constantly reminded that almost everything you thought you were doing right for your children will one day turn out to be wrong. The latest revised revelation may be: Training wheels don't help kids achieve a sense of balance.
Can A Change Of Heart Beat The Flip-Flop Charge?
May 12, 2012 Politicians are often lauded in speeches for holding fast to their convictions. But history often honors those who change their minds. Perhaps it's too easy to automatically see political calculation as the only force that changes a politician's mind or heart.
A Panda's Inseminal Moment, Tweet By Tweet
May 5, 2012 This week on Twitter, the social media service famed for carrying the messages of pro-democracy dissidents in Iran, Egypt and other places, featured something a little difficult to conceive: live tweeting of the artificial insemination of a giant panda at the National Zoo.
He Mapped The World, And We Saw Ourselves
April 28, 2012 In a time when most people never got to venture much further than the place in which they were born, Gerardus Mercator's maps gave us not only a truer view of our world, but the means to go out and explore it.
Prostitution's Real Casualties Aren't Secret Service
April 21, 2012 I've been curious about a question I haven't heard in the stories about U.S. Secret Service agents misbehaving before President Obama's arrival at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. Why were world leaders meeting in a place with legalized prostitution anyway?
Bosnia Remembers When The World Looked Away
April 7, 2012 A river of 11,541 empty red chairs flowed through the streets of Sarajevo on Friday, honoring those who died in the Siege of Sarajevo 20 years ago. It might remind us today that while getting involved can be costly, there is also a cost for not acting — in lives.
