IdeasEighty-Four to Eight
The Senate voted 84-8 to advance a bill banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes. In this Senate, that number means something.
Ideas
Ideas
IdeasJournaling for Beginners: Ignore the System and Just Write
Someone built an industry around what your journal should look like. Four years in, I can tell you it isn't any of that.
IdeasFrom the Editor: Midsummer 2026
The letter was dated June 1961. I sat with it longer than the coffee lasted.
IdeasNo One Came Back
Section 702 lapsed Friday at midnight while the House was on recess. The intelligence community says nothing changed. That part is probably true. But the reason it lapsed isn't nothing.
IdeasWhat the Best Jazz Albums Actually Teach You
Somebody decided Kind of Blue was where you start. Here is what the trail looks like from there, and what you find when you keep going.
IdeasFrom the Editor: Mid-June 2026
She didn't say she read it. She said she checked it. There's a difference.
IdeasThe Word He Used
Scott Pelley chose the most precise word he had. What I keep thinking about is the story nobody will pursue because someone in that room heard it.
IdeasThe Best Historical Fiction: What the Genre Does When It Works
Not a ranked list. A walk through the genre with fifty years of opinions behind it.
IdeasFrom the Editor: Early June 2026
Hank still goes to the door. Slower than he used to. But he goes.
IdeasThe Fear in the Lesson Plan
More than half of America's civics teachers are afraid to teach the subject wrong. The fear is working.
IdeasMarcus Aurelius Quotes and the Machinery Behind Them
The Meditations was a private journal. Someone else decided which parts you'd see.
IdeasDale Parsons: From the Editor (Late May 2026)
Nine weeks in, my son said something about history that I haven't stopped thinking about.
IdeasBefore the Flags Go Up
What it means to end a war on social media, on the eve of the day set aside to count the dead.
IdeasBooks to Read Before You Die
Someone decided which books matter. Here is how that happened, and which ones actually do.
IdeasThe Seventh Vote
One vote short, for the seventh time, and what that tells you about the question Congress keeps losing.
IdeasThe Price of Saying No
Five Indiana state senators said no to a president in December. In May, their voters said no to them.
IdeasWhat an Hour Tells You
The Supreme Court rewrote the Voting Rights Act. One hour later, Florida had a new map.
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.