In ancient Greece, citizens felt an obligation to host wandering travelers because the beggar knocking at the door might be a disguised god. In The Odyssey, Telemachus greets a stranger at his door by saying, "Welcome stranger. You shall be entertained as a guest among us. Afterward, when you have...

"YouTube chats," the younger brother of FDR's "Fireside chats," have transformed the way politicians and business leaders connect with young voters and consumers. A YouTube chat is an informal video of a leader addressing the camera from a desk or chair. The video is then posted online as a way...

When I first arrived in Saint Louis as a new inhabitant, I laced up my Colorado hiking boots, stocked my backpack with peanuts, filled my water bottle with Red Gatorade, and walked out my front door for a "city hike." Using a map I had printed from Google, I meandered...

"Poetry is dead," one of my students informed me from the back row of the classroom. These are not words that a high school English teacher likes to hear.

Trying to regain control of my class, I loudly replied with a verse that I was once forced to memorize...