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Psst. I hear that gossip is not all bad.
When I was growing up, there was a woman in the neighborhood known as The Mayor. She was not a mayor in any official sense, and in fact held no political office. She was a
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Hunger and Hoarding
Suzanne Collins’ futuristic trilogy, The Hunger Games, takes place in Panem, a totalitarian nation of obscene wealth and pervasive poverty. Its twelve districts are all impoverished, but District 12, the coal-mining region formerly called Appalachia
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A Cognitive Earthquake: Who’s Really In Need?
In January 2000, an earthquake shook China’s mountainous Yunnan province. It was a moderate earthquake and killed only seven, but it leveled more than 40,000 homes and injured thousands of residents. According to the World
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Unshakable Humanity: Altruism and Disaster
In May of 2008, a massive earthquake hit China’s Sichuan province. The earthquake measured 8.0 and could be felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Russia. The shaking lasted a full two minutes and
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God’s Flipside: Religion Without Kindness
I recently watched one of the most brutal and upsetting films I’ve ever seen, called The Stoning of Soraya M. I suppose the title of this 2008 film should have warned me away, but I
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Real Good For Free: The Paradox of Leisure Time
I’m pretty busy. Like most people I know, I try to balance a lot of different things—a full-time job, household chores, cooking and meals, regular exercise, time with family and friends. Throw in an occasional
