If adults were required to compose essays chronicling what they did on their summer vacation, some of us would have no choice but to hand in a blank piece of paper. A recent article in The New York Times reported that about one in four private-sector workers in the U.S. receive no paid vacation time

Lisa and Louise had never met until the morning of July 7, 2005, when they found themselves sitting next to each other on the top deck of a No. 30 bus in London’s commuter traffic. They would probably never have spoken to each other even then, given that legendary British reserve, but events w

Three years ago, on a sunny September Tuesday at 9 in the morning, in Washington, D.C., our first child was born. We had not planned for a natural childbirth without medical attendance until the final moments, but that’s how it turned out, as the medical staff and anesthesiologist were diverte

As Labor Day approached, a sublimely ironic drama was being played out on Capitol Hill. At the end of July, the U.S. House of Representatives finally passed a bill that would raise the minimum wage, over the next couple of years and with no provision for future inflation, from $5.15 to a kingly $7.2

I had never been inside an ambulance before. I didn’t for a moment expect to discover that night what the inside of an ambulance looks like. But that’s lifeone minute we have an agenda, the next minute our best-laid plans lie in pieces all over the floor of our lives. That’s supposed to be one of the things that makes God laughpeople who make plans. I guess I should say that as we sped through the streets to the emergency room, I saw the events of my life passing in front of me, but no such thing. In fact, let’s be honest, the cause of the drama was not nearly so serious as it might sound, and deep down I knew that. I was inside an ambulance more as a result of medical overkill and family panic than for any other reason.

Instead, as we sped through the deepening twilight, a line from a song I had recently heard for the first time drifted through my mind, a song by the St. Louis Jesuits, with the refrain:

O Beauty ever ancient, O beauty ever new:

The columnist Russell Baker once wrote a piece about the discovery he made one evening after he retired to his basement and, with nothing else to do, turned on the television set. All sorts of new and alien life forms invaded the basement. There was, he would write, a country living in his cellara c