You may generally disregard unfamiliar faces as background characters in the movie that is your life, but almost everyone you care about was once a stranger. Aside from the people who have been in your life since you were born, every relationship has a getting-to-know you process where you transition from unknowns to knowns.  Strangers […]

When candidate Donald Trump promised mass deportations on the 2024 campaign trail, it was hard to imagine exactly what that might turn into.  Though he boasted about implementing the “largest domestic deportation operation” in history, you could be forgiven for believing he meant something more limited — a “sequential” approach (as JD Vance suggested), starting […]

Crafting as protest has a long history in America, dating back to before the American Revolution when colonists would boycott British textiles, choosing to spin their own instead. More than 250 years later, the medium is alive and well: A knitting pattern for a “Melt the ICE” hat, for example, has raised more than $700,000 […]

How old am I? Old enough to have flown on planes that had ashtrays in the armrests. Old enough to remember restaurants with smoking sections separated from the nonsmoking section by, essentially, nothing. Old enough to remember when “smoking or non” was a question the restaurant host actually asked you. Old enough that in the […]

Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form. Here’s this week’s question from […]