It’s been eight years since my mom died, and another five before that when she wasn’t living, if you know what I mean — and I know a lot of people know precisely what I mean, understanding dementia all too well. Strangely, after all this time, three different mom-related surprises have come to me in the past two weeks. First, an insurance company wrote me, seeking to "reunite the proper beneficiary with the death claim proceeds" from a policy my mom had. It’s not surprisi

Someone once told me a certain charter school in Utah forbids sharing among its students, instead rebuking young children who offer to share. Kids who express interest in something that belongs to someone else are told, “Get your own.” Maybe this is where Mitt Romney came from. The difference in tone between the Republican and the Democratic national conventions was incredibly stark. The values of one group echo my own childhood teachings: We look out for each other,

Faux indignation was the main strategy at the Republican convention. Anyone who watched President Obama flub a line of a talk in July, saying, “You didn’t build that,” understands he meant that no one builds their business alone, that the infrastructure inherent in being a developed country with things like an educated workforce and government business loans gives you support. In fact, Mitt Romney made a similar speech in 2002, telling Olympic athletes, “You didn’t get he