Today's Opinions

The great New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell has an unfailing ability to find interesting things to write about. In his recent collection of essays titled “What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures,” he explains what makes some topics so interesting. “Curiosity about the interior life of other people’s day-to-day work is one of the most fundamental of human impulses,” he writes.

We are relational beings, and we’re interested in how others live their lives.

Last week’s shootings at Deer Creek Middle School were an awful reminder of the events at Columbine and Platte Canyon. Yet in the midst of our concern for the two wounded students, there was also cause to celebrate the heroic actions of Dr. David Benke, a math teacher whose split-second decision to tackle the shooter undoubtedly saved lives.

A recent story on National Public Radio suggested that people who find themselves with mortgage balances that are more than their homes are worth would be smart to stop making payments, have their homes foreclosed upon and then go buy another house in the same neighborhood based on the newly diminished housing values. They even found a contracts lawyer to say the reason there are default provisions in contracts is because defaulting on contracts is a rational option that is available to anyone who enters into any contract.