Anatomical Specimens Share a Scone

Wanting answers, we create reductions: I am. She was. The administration will.

If Second Chances Are Not Free, How Much Do They Cost?

He seemed almost happy. Maybe because the river, the night, and the freedom felt good to him. He played one of his favorite songs, “My Girl” by the Motown group The Temptations, music from his youth before he went to prison.

The Curious Second Act of Chuck Colson

The “hatchet man” for President Nixon, and a chief architect of both Nixon’s “dirty tricks” and the team of “Plumbers” who schemed to smear, libel, drug, and, in at least one case, even assassinate the president’s vast list of “enemies,” lived not just to endure the stain of a criminal conviction and seven months in federal prison, but seemingly transcend it. Watergate historians, however, are not so kind.

The Second Life of African Art in Western Preserves

Heritage is collective, aesthetic, and performative. It is something you inherit. Whereas history, on the other hand, is authored, linear, personal. It is something you produce. Museums often allow Africans the former but not the latter. Our art is heritage; European art is history. Our works are culture; theirs are achievements.

Planking at Costco

Costco is the best place I know where I can enjoy other families and especially their children, now that I do not have a child in my own home who routinely brings other children into my life. At all costs, one must avoid appearing to pay any unwanted attention to any child.

The Speed Machine and the Rebirth of a Champion

British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton’s move to Scuderia Ferrari signals a second act, a new opportunity to emerge victorious not only on the track but also to continue pushing the limits of what is possible beyond it.

The Civil War as America’s Second Chance

At Trenton and Independence Hall, Lincoln wondered at the willingness of our patriotic ancestors to imperil their lives for a nation that did not yet and perhaps would never exist.

Jennie C. Jones and Fred Eversley at the Pulitzer, and the Perception of a Divided Life

In a museum, we often try to understand what a painting means and where it is coming from, placing ourselves at the center of the experience. This sculpture removed me completely. I was forced to look outward instead of inward, as if I were seeing a world that existed without me.

From Luke Skywalker to Moses

The real world is filled with transformative “second chance” stories—true tales of people who at some point in their lives answer the summons of a new path.