Flipper the kitten was born with a twisted spine nine months ago, leaving her hind legs so badly crooked that she could only drag them behind her. When you see video of her in that state, it’s heart-rending, like a scene from a movie where the gunshot victim pulls himself across a room with his…Read More

Mothers, as it turns out, are useful in natural disasters. That’s from a recent New York Times column by Ginia Bellafante, about how the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy has transformed a small band of New York mothers into, more or less, suburban angels of mercy. The stories she tells are remarkable: “Most of them (are)…Read More

A story about college debt in a recent New York Times opened with this arresting first paragraph: “If Steve Boedefeld graduates from Appalachian State University without any student loan debt, it will be because of the money he earned fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and the money he now saves by eating what he grows…Read More

If you look out your window at some point and see Spider Man with a squeegee, doing your windows, there are probably some kids in your building who could use a smile.  A crew of window washers has been dressing up at comic book heroes—Captain America, Spider Man and Batman—and going to children’s hospitals around…Read More

On the website Quora recently, the question was posed: what do the police know that we don’t? One response in particular moved me and made me want to actually spend time with someone in the police force. The idealism and compassion his final comments embody are very affecting, after the bracing realism of the first…Read More