Opinion
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Why Humans Aren’t the Worst (Despite, Well, Everything Happening in the World)
Produced by ‘Sway’ In 2019, when Rutger Bregman published his book “Humankind: A Hopeful History” and made a case for…
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A Glimmer of Justice in Death Penalty States
NASHVILLE — In 1987, a young man named Pervis Payne, stopping at his girlfriend’s place in Millington, Tenn., noticed that…
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Opioids Feel Like Love. That’s Why They’re Deadly in Tough Times.
I had told myself that I’d never try heroin because it sounded too perfect. It’s like “warm, buttery love,” a…
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I Tried to Change Bob Dole. Now I Realize He Was Right.
Early in the 1996 race for the White House, the senior leadership of Bob Dole’s presidential campaign noticed something that…
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The Ghosts of Mississippi
Mississippi may be about to double down on its dubious distinction as the state where the tide of progress is…
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I’m Not Ready for Christmas. I Need to Take a Minute.
The past two years blur in my mind into a reel of fuzzy memories, stresses and changes, Covid alert levels,…
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Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of My Black Neighborhood?
About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of…
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A Tiny Home of One’s Own
If you have spent time in recent years in any of California’s larger cities, you’ve probably seen outcroppings of small,…
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Rudeness Is On the Rise. You Got a Problem With That?
Some time ago I tried to write a sympathetic column about women named Karen, people who — through no fault…
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Every Time a Black Man Dies in America, a Part of Me Dies, Too
When Virgil Abloh died last week at the age of 41, I thought of my father. Many in the Black…