Mary Katharine Ham
I am a happy person, and I'm not prone to depression, and I've been thankful for that.Collection: Thankful
Valentine's Day is a holiday of high emotions, mostly stress. The occasion has the unique ability to make both those who do participate in it and those who don't feel vaguely unfulfilled.Collection: Valentines
In the past, it's been possible to say that calls for repeal of the Second Amendment or widespread gun bans and confiscation were crackpot calls outside the mainstream of American liberalism. But during the Parkland response, that has become progressively less plausible.
For a movement meant to smash the patriarchy, Equal Pay Day shares one of its worst habits - the apparent inability to listen to actual women.
For women, a combination of protecting family life, prioritizing young children, and dealing with rising child-care costs cause them to leave the work force entirely for years at a time.
Despite the hype, Equal Pay Day is, at best, a simplistic understanding of the factors that create wage differences. At worst, it's an intentional misrepresentation of a phenomenon that almost completely ignores the choices, wishes, and motivations of women in the workplace.
Women are more likely to take a job that pays less to gain flexibility and work-life balance. I've done it myself many times.
Comey clearly doesn't want Trump to be president. He has some of the same concerns about his moral character as I have and, indeed, as many of Trump's own voters had when they pulled the lever for him.
Passionate critics of the president often go after him because he violates norms and goes to extraordinary measures to take on his adversaries. Fair, but in the next breath, they'll advocate violating norms and going to extraordinary measures to take out Trump.
We fought a war for the freedom to care about what we want to care about, and this is among the things we may choose as free Americans.
Secure Americans should be at peace with our special relationship with Britain and happy to celebrate her special occasions, no matter how odd they seem to us.
I never got the fascination with the royals as I was growing up. I had no particular issue with them but didn't indulge.
Often, a correct criticism of President Donald Trump is he violates norms. Too often, those who criticize him resort to violating norms themselves to fight him.
One of the hallmarks of a Trump administration has been to introduce us to quintessentially New York characters and their special brand of famous rich people infighting.
A full life does not allow for a mom to be with every child in every conceivable moment. Some moms are there more often than others are, some have more children than others do.
There is no perfect version of life, no alternate reality in which you get to achieve everything you ever wanted in your career, travel anywhere you ever wanted, and still experience every first in your children's lives.
I'm convinced the most powerful example my mom set for me was not working outside the home, although she did and she was dedicated and great at it. She worked outside the home and never seemed ashamed of it.
Trump attacks the media because trust in media is low.
Trump doesn't care much about anyone's speech if it disagrees with him, and that's an extremely bad trait in a president making public pronouncements.
Mistakes will always happen, but the way they're corrected can help.
It's important to the country for the gulf between many American voters and the people who cover them to get smaller.
If there's one thing I've learned about First Lady Melania Trump since her husband was elected president, it's that she can wear the hell out of a coat. Dramatic, functional, militaristic, sporty, tailored, avant garde - she covers a lot of ground with her coverings.
Dunkirk' is all big vistas, but ultimately a very confined picture of the war.
Darkest Hour' is all claustrophobic settings paired with a much bigger window on the conflict.
I found 'Dunkirk' visceral and the timeline a bit challenging, but it paid off nicely as the movie's three storylines join as the action culminates.
In the end, 'Darkest Hour' tells the story of the near destruction of Western Civilization. 'Dunkirk' allows you to feel it in all its uncomfortable, confusing horror. You'll remember 'Dunkirk,' but if you watch 'Darkest Hour,' the moment in history and the people who defined it will stick with you, too.
I don't usually watch awards shows.
If you want to be paid for your job, you need to insist on being paid for your job.
People will take every opportunity to pay you nothing if you're willing to do your work for free, be you man or woman. Women give people that opportunity more often than men do.
There are injustices in the world. Life isn't fair.
TV images are powerful and sometimes unfair.
I like football.
Calm, censorious mobs are still censorious mobs.
A lot of art can potentially make people uncomfortable, particularly when it deals with different times and hard issues.
Disappearing controversial words and works doesn't make us smarter.
Can you have too much of a good thing? When that thing is 'Fast and Furious' franchise installments, one would think the answer would be simple - there's no such thing.
The Real Housewives' franchise is unabashedly lowbrow, and that is the secret to its success.
My mother and father had to change every clock in the house manually and they had three small children. Yet I never remember them complaining about something so inconsequential as Daylight Saving Time.
When you lose someone, you go through a lot of metaphors. Our vocabulary falters in the face of death.
Before 'trolling' was a phenomenon with a well-known name, PETA had perfected it.
I'm not a fan of Dylan's music, per se, but I'm not a hater. I like the American folk music tradition, and I'll listen to 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right' on repeat a couple times a year if the mood strikes. Beyond that, I'm sort of befuddled by the Dylan phenomenon.
Some Americans are under the grossly mistaken impression that because we violently and triumphantly unyoked ourselves from the British Empire oh so many years ago, we are under some sort of informal directive to spurn the traditions and hoopla of the royal family.
There are a thousand reasons for missing one of your kids' firsts. Some moms may have just been in another room making breakfast when it happened. It doesn't feel great, but it's not the end of the world.
After college, I covered news for a couple of years. There were things I loved and hated about it. I loved hard deadlines, watching sports for a living, writing every day, learning all about a new town, meeting its people and learning its quirks.
I always had overlapping social circles with different ideological groups and different activist groups.
I love the idea of the divine spark. It crosses a lot of cultures and religions, the idea that you carry a bit of the Creator inside you, that it animates your life.
No matter how 'commonsense' you might consider some gun regulations, they have to pass constitutional muster to become a reality.
I know Duke's magnolia-carpeted campus and gray, gothic towers.
If the goal is to significantly curtail the number of guns - or even slow its growth, which is the purported goal of many activists - they must deal with the Constitution.
I am a very social person, but not a planner.