Lifestyle

Dear Mr. Oliver, I was quite disappointed by this past week's "Last Week Tonight" (airing on June 21, 2015). The content was hilarious and eye opening, and your topic of the week (the dangers of the internet) is an important topic that must be tackled by the media; however, I feel that you could have had a much more effective show if you had devoted your entire 30 minutes to the Charleston massacre. I am usually a big fan of your show, but this past week you did not insert your unique voice into the fray when it was needed. Yes, the recap at the top of the show was good, but it was simply not enough. You run a show called "Last Week Tonight," and rather than giving the audience satire of the news of last week, you favored a prepared segment about the internet. I understand...

Dear Native college student, As a new academic year approaches, I want to share some words from my heart. Know that these words are not just from me; they are shared experiences and stories that I've learned from family, college classmates, mentors, teachers, and Native college students like yourself. I hope this letter serves as a source of inspiration as you journey towards attaining a college degree. Like many of you, I knew college was in my pathway. When I was eight years old, I told my mom that I was going to college. And in May of 2015, I fulfilled that dream and graduated with a doctorate in higher education from the University of Arizona. There are not many Native peoples on the college journey. Nationally, 1 percent of Natives receive a college degree each year. Some...

Dear David: I know you really care about floors. I know because I've been to your Neues Museum in Berlin and your Saint Louis Art Museum extension, and both have exceptional floors. And I know you were unhappy with the floors at your new Museum in Milan, the Museo delle Culture (Mudec). So unhappy that, after working behind the scenes to get the floors fixed, unsuccessfully, you chose to go public: first disowning the building, then releasing a letter in which you complained about some 60,000 square feet of sub-standard lavastone. In the letter, you said that the hundreds of slabs of volcanic rock displayed "a substantial lack of homogeneity"; that individual pieces had gaps, chips and cracks; and that the installation introduced bad joints and other defects. But could the floors...

Dear Daycare, Inside your walls, you welcome children from as young as 6 weeks old to as old as 12 years old, in some places. Your employees smile at the parents every morning as they walk in looking rushed, glaring at any teacher they see with pleading eyes to make their drop-off go smoothly. The young girl with no kids of her own, struggling to get through college and getting paid barely above minimum wage, sees the harried look on our faces and quickly greets the trembling-lipped child. She scoops them up and distracts them with a toy or book far more awesome than anything we have at home. Sometimes our kid will cry in spite of her efforts. But sometimes they just need that kind voice to encourage them to wave at the window with a promise that Mom or Dad will return soon. We have...