IdeasWhat an Hour Tells You
The Supreme Court rewrote the Voting Rights Act. One hour later, Florida had a new map.
Ideas
Ideas
IdeasBest Tablets: Who Decided You Needed One?
Someone decided a tablet was the answer. The question is whether anyone asked what the problem was.
IdeasWhat Nine Dollars Buys
A Planned Parenthood clinic in Sacramento started offering Botox at nine dollars a unit. The story isn't about Botox.
IdeasFive Books I Keep Behind the Counter
A bookseller's list of books that were waiting for you to catch up.
IdeasHow to Find Your Photos on an iPhone: Someone Designed It This Way on Purpose
Your phone has 14,000 photos in it. Finding the one you want shouldn't require a degree in library science.
IdeasTwo Numbers, One Country
The S&P 500 hit a record high the same week consumer sentiment hit a 74-year low. Both numbers were accurate. That might be the problem.
IdeasBest Cell Phones for Seniors: Who Decided You Need a Different Phone?
Someone decided what kind of phone you can handle. They were probably wrong.
IdeasThe Station That Went Dark
A federal judge said the government can't defund public media to punish speech. Congress had already done it anyway.
IdeasWhat Showing Up Looks Like
Three thousand one hundred events in all fifty states. But the number that matters is fifty-three.
IdeasHow to Write a Memoir: What Fifty Years of Reading Them Taught Me
A bookseller who has read thousands of memoirs on what makes one true, what makes one false, and why the one you haven't started yet might matter more than you think.
IdeasRetirement Hobbies: Who Decided You Need One?
The prescription was invented. The hobbies are just the product.
IdeasWho Invented the Senior Citizen
The phrase was invented to honor people like us. It has mostly been used to sort us.
IdeasWho Invented Retirement (And Why It Might Be the Wrong Idea)
The age 65 was not discovered. It was decided. Here is who decided it, and when, and why.
IdeasThe Woman Who Told Me to Stop Wasting Her Time
A retired math teacher in Terre Haute asked a simple question. I spent two years trying to answer it.
IdeasWhat the Old Brain Actually Knows
For decades, scientists measured the wrong things and called it a study of aging.
IdeasWhat's Left When the Efficiency Guys Are Done
The show moves fast. The damage moves slow. That's always been the arrangement.